Dear Governor Philip Aguer: Why should the poor unemployed citizens pay taxes?
5 min readAn open letter to the state, local and county governments of Jonglei state: Should the poor unemployed citizen pays taxes?
By Abit kuir Abit, Kabarak University, Kenya
Friday, March 01, 2019 (PW) — Dear, Hon Philip Aguer, Hon Dut Achueek lual Deng and Hon Dau Akoi Jurkuch, first and foremost, I would like to pay my gratitude and thanks for your kind heart leadership style you have shown us in our state (Jonglei). It will remain as a nice role model for us the current and some generations to come.
Your Excellencies Honorable leaders of my state, I hope this letter finds you well. While submitting this appeal to you and your esteemed administrations, I am not in any way claiming superior abilities and wisdom than you (all) might have acquired. But want to state that the entire state depends on you for a right decision(s) against promoters of the graft.
Continual inaction is worsening already awful situation your fellow citizens face and may only end in more pains, regrets, and wishes, which cannot help remedy consequential evil that marring our history or losses likely to result.
Also, it’s with frustration on the ongoing graft in the state, especially the county I belong (TWIC CENTRAL-NYUAK) though it’s happening in the other counties, I am not quite sure of. Before I rush into the full context of the message, can I please make clear the economic scope of what the tax is.
What is a tax?
Tax is a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers’ income and business profits, or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.
What are these compulsory pays to the government?
Taxes generally fall into the following broad categories:
- Income tax
- Payroll tax
- Property tax
- Consumption tax (levies on consumption of goods and services)
- Tariff (taxes on international trade)
- Capitation, a fixed tax charged per person
- Fees and tolls
- Effective taxes, government policies that aren’t explicitly taxes, but result in income to the government through losses to the public.
So, references to the above definition of tax and types of taxes, any human being can be able to define “Who The Tax Payers” could be,
For that matter, I want to bring into your attention that the moves to collecting taxes from the poor unemployed citizen is unfair and it is an indirect route to corruption. We (The citizen) are paying taxes for the projects which the national government have funded. What is it that we are doing?
Are we not funding the individual’s pocket (corruption)? Else, if am very wrong in saying this, then the pending questions are, are there no allocations for the road construction, government school projects, allocations towards uncertainties such as the natural disasters like the flood that we are needed to pay for the dyke construction, health and many more that am very sure the national government is budgeting every year.
It’s completely unfair and a clear violation of the interim constitution of the republic of South Sudan and the LAW OF TAXATION.
The Taxation Act, 2009 states and clearly defines who the tax payers are, “In accordance with the provisions of Article 59(2) (b) read together with Article 85(2)(b) of the Interim Constitution of Southern Sudan, 2005 the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly, with the assent of the President of the Government of Southern Sudan, hereby enacts the Following; …….”
Section 55. Taxpayers
(1) For the purposes of this Chapter, taxpayers shall include resident and non-resident individuals who have earned or received gross income, as defined in section 57 of this Act, during the tax period.
(2) Individuals who are taxed at a zero rate as set forth in Schedule II of this Act shall not be taxpayers for the purposes of this Chapter.
In every country, we do agree that it’s a right of the government to collect taxes but from the business and the employed, where did you (the state and county government) borrowed this reversed idea? It was of course there during the 21 years of SPLA struggle but in the name of support of our beloved sons who were fighting Arabs, so it wasn’t a corruption.
If that is the case now, then you have to stop it because then, there were no allocations from the north so we had to do since it was on a genuine reason.
Therefore, as a concerned and frustrated citizen, I hereby appeal to the national treasury and the ministry for finance and corporate planning that we are being marginalized in this case.
The poor unemployed are required to pay for what you have already allocated in the national budget and the constitution and acts concern with the taxes collection and revenue generation is being violated seriously.
I kindly call upon your ministry to look into this issue urgently and take some measures pertaining the ongoing corruption case in South Sudan.
We say NO to funding individual pockets. Rather, we are committed to what the interim constitution of the republic of south Sudan says.
The author is a South Sudanese student pursuing Bachelor degree program (B.COMM majoring in Finance) at Kabarak university-Kenya, school of business and economics studies, department of commerce. He can be reached via his email: akuir@kabarak.ac.ke or abitkuir@gmail.com
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