The National Board of Revenue’s annual celebration of the country’s top taxpayers is a helpful reminder of the importance of taxes.
By giving awards to leading corporate and individual taxpayers, it rewards transparency and sets an example for others to follow. Taken together with the Income Tax Fair which began on Tuesday, it is a cost-effective way of making people aware about the importance and benefits of paying tax regularly.
The government needs to heed remarks made by some of those who have received awards.
Services for taxpayers still have much room for improvement, despite the development of new online methods for registering identification and submitting returns. Complicated rules which facilitate avoidance or high-import duties that encourage avoidance and smuggling should be reformed to root out inefficiencies.
Many citizens still show reluctance to use NBR offices because of fear of facing harassment. Modernising the system and rooting out corruption to make it more user-friendly is vital to encourage more people to pay due taxes.
Official figures suggest less than 2% of the population pays income tax. While in part this is explained by low levels of typical incomes, it is clear the country suffers from large amounts of tax avoidance and evasion.
The government must speed up initiatives to reform the system so that the country’s tax base can become more inclusive and self-reliant.
It is both inefficient and unfair to those taxpayers who pay their dues in full to leave people who can afford to pay outside the system.
