AIBAK (Pajhwok): Some provincial government departments in northern Samangan province owe around 289 million afghanis to the Municipality Department in unpaid taxes on urban services, cleanliness and property.
Some local departments acknowledge theydefault on municipal taxesbut others reject they owe any arrears to the department.
Mayor Mohammad FerozTakin said a total 55 provincial departmentsdefaulted on the municipality’s taxes.
The table of these departments received by Pajhwok Afghan News shows 10 provincial departments owe five million afghanisto the municipality out of each seven millionafsin unpaid taxes.
Of the total nearly 285 million unpaid taxes, above 113 million is payable by the school and Education Department’s related institutions and over 37 million afs by the National Directorate of Security, nearly 30 million afs by the Interior Ministry’s related department and the remaining 27 million afs by other institutions.
BaktashMohammadi, deputy head of the Samangan Higher Educational Institution, acknowledged their university owed money in unpaid taxes to the municipality.
He said the Ministry of Higher Education had been asked to allocate fund for the payment of taxes to the municipality.
Mohammad Bashir Salahi, director of the Education Department, said his department had paid 1.2 million afghanis to the municipality in cleanliness tax.
He, however, said the municipality sent them a list of urban services tax amounting to of 90 million afghanisand school land tax which according to him his department was not responsible to pay.
He said the municipality indicated schools over tax payment despite the fact they were not bound to pay the chages.
He said if the Education Department received a formal letter of payment from the municipality, they would share it with the ministry in Kabul.
Most of defaulters are property sellers
Mohammad FerozTagin, the Aibak City mayor, told Pajhwok Afghan News that most of land buyers who had made constructions on the land they purchased from the municipality did not pay taxes on buying to the municipality despite they had been officially told several times.
Abdul HaiFarhar, head of the governor’s house financial affairs, acknowledged they defaulted on 140,000 afghanis payment to the municipality, but rejected liabilities concerning the new governor’s house building.
He said the provincial government had exchanged the new governor’s house building against the old one with the municipality and the exchange documents were being worked on.
According to the mayor, an agreement regarding the exchange of the old building with the new one has been reachedand the documents dispatched to Kabul for approval.
He said the issue had been formally shared with the Independent Directorate of Local Governance (IDLG).
Tagin said the issue of non-payment of taxes by different local government offices was raised during the recent Mayor Conference in Kabul.
He said the Ministry of Finance had allocated one billion afghanis to pay all liabilities and stressed that 80 million afsshould be given to the Samangan Municipality.
He added defaulting government institutions were facilitated from a separate fund allocated by the Finance Ministry.
He said the issue had been formally conveyed to the IDLG for further instructions to the municipality.
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