Our obligation to pay taxes

One of the factors that have contributed to our country's cash crunch is without doubt the poor revenue collection by the authorities. The Ministry of Finance, largely due to weak enforcement capacity, has struggled over the years to come up with an effective tax and governance system. This has led to a significant undercollection of tax, which is costing government millions a year. In fact, in one of the ongoing court cases, government has reportedly lost about N$3.5 billion due to fraud, tax evasion and money-laundering by Chinese nationals and a local businessman from the coast. Of late the Ministry of Finance has committed itself to strengthening efforts to build revenue capacity in order to effectively administer the collection of tax, among others. Tax avoidance and evasion through under- or non-reporting of income has been an issue for quite some time, with the authorities last year decrying the fact that there was a huge undercollection of tax at the Oshakati office, which has over 81 000 registered taxpayers. It was reported that government collected a mere N$36 million from taxpayers registered with the Oshakati office during the 2015/16 financial year. During this period last year the principal tax debt countrywide stood at N$4 billion. This is uncalled for simply because it affects all efforts to increase economic growth as well as providing high-quality public services such as roads, clinics, schools and programmes aimed at alleviating poverty, among others. We are in full concurrence with the northern businessmen who have taken issue with government for allegedly protecting some foreign nationals when it comes to paying tax. As much as we expect all business owners to conform to the legal obligation of paying tax, government must put in extra effort to avoid the complex tax avoidance from businesses and individuals. We need a proper reporting and monitoring system tasked with overseeing the collection of taxes from all local and foreign investors in a fair manner. After all it is a legal obligation to pay revenue dues.