The taxman is a kabul, bearded, black-turbal talib with ingenious way and calculating the mind of an accountant who smart.
As director of the Taliban Taxpayer Tax Administration, Abdul Qahar Ghorbanda has an unenviable task of collecting revenue for the Government of a furiously poor, isolated nation.
From his sitting behind a huge table next to the black -white flag of Taliban, Mr. Ghorbandi drives a flock to hundreds of Afghan taxpayers every working day. Ensures that they arrive with income documentation and leave with a handful of tax patterns to be fulfilled.
Teachers, money exchangers, truckers, wedding planners, groceries and others cover the worn corridors of imposing tax buildings, discussing their taxes with Talibi hitting computer terminals.
The Talibans sought to increase tax collection after a severe economic contraction, which followed them after their take over in 2021. The authoritarian regime is decorated with sanctions, partly because of its sharp limitations to women and girls.
US assistance, drastically reduced from 2021, could be completely removed under the decrease in the budget of President Trump. This assistance has moved to the United Nations and NGOs working in Afghanistan, not directly to the Taliban Government.
With the Taliban who are now in power, former guerrilla fighters must function as bureaucrats. In the tax department of 280 people, they work together with employees inherited from the Government supported by the US that the Taliban overturned.
“At the same table we have people with turbans, with beards, in addition to people with suits,” said Mohammad Walid Haqmal, a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance.
The taxman himself, Mr. Ghorbandi, was the secret operative of Taliban in Kabul before becoming a civil servant, he said.
Mr. Ghorbandi, who said he had a master’s degree in computer science, presided over by a computer system of tax administrations from English into Pashto and Dari. He hired an IT experts for the modernization of the department.
He also tried to instill a culture of transparency, he said as he rested for the lunch of beef kebab and rice. His employees are not allowed to deal with money. Taxpayers take their patterns to the Government Bank and pay taxes there.
When he is not at his desk, he signs Remo’s documents provided by the assistants who rush inside and out, he said, visits different parts of his department, asking the taxpayers so he can faster.
International observers say the Talibans have reduced the tax corruption And cronism that Afghanism say is widespread under the government aligned with the US, while simplifying the tax collection process.
Although many well -connected Afghans once avoided paying taxes, Mr. Ghorbandandi emphasized that even as a government taxman, he was not exceptional. He said he paid 30,000 Afghanistan a month, or just over $ 400.
However, openly and effectively, it is nevertheless a tax office, and not every taxpayer leaves.
Shamsurahman Shams, who appeared one day at the end of last year, had a beef with a taxman. He said that two private schools that helped running did not make money in the last three years – and wore a plastic folder filled with documents to prove it. However, taxes are estimated at 500,000 Afghanists, or about $ 7,350.
He participated in a humorous but civilian discussion with the employee of the department, showing his man’s documents. There was no resolution. He was told to return later to continue the negotiations.
Although he did not hope, Mr. Shams admitted that the new procedure was more transparent than the previous system. “At least they listened to me,” he said.
During the war, the Talibans managed a lucrative tax system that had collected customs duties, transportation fees and local taxes in the areas that controlled. They also earned millions by imposing 10 percent of taxes – “ushar” in Islam – on poppy farmers, although they have since banned poppy production.
In 2023, the Taliban government raised about three billion dollars of taxes, customs and fees or 15.5 percent of the gross domestic product. (Comparable rate in the United States was 25.2 percent). The largest source of Taliban was so -called Non -tax revenues – Customs duties, mining revenues, telecommunications permit, airport fees and national card fees, passports and visas, the World Bank reported. This income, for the first half of last year, increased 27 percent compared to the same period of the previous year.
Half of the Government’s income was spent on security and army last year, and only 26 percent on social programs – most of this on boys’ education, according to international observers.
Mr. Ghorbandi said the tax system was not designed to be criminal. General exemptions mean that most of the usual Afghanists do not pay income tax. Shopkeepers with an annual sale below two million Afghans, or about $ 29,500, are also exempt.
Making traders compared to this amount are taxed to only 0.3 percent – the rate that American conservatives would surely appreciate.
There are no penalties or interest payments for taxpayers who are not reinforced in time. However, submissions can lose business licenses and access to the banking system.
“We are people,” Mr. Ghorbandi said. “We don’t want to burden our people.”
He and Mr. Haqmal, a spokesman for the Ministry of Finance, said that the ultimate goal was to remove all income taxes.
“It’s a direct order from our supreme leader,” Mr. Haqmal said. “He said,” I need a tax Afghanistan. “” Mr. Haqmal thought of Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzad, the Taliban Emir and the Head of the State.
Another direct order from Sheikh Haibatullah was Removing women’s rights and the wider limitations of civil freedoms for all Afghan. Women are forbidden to travel any significant distance without a male cousin and are obliged to cover the entire bodies and faces in public. The sound of a woman’s voice outside her home is prohibited.
A striking feature of 15 tax departments in Kabul is a form of female taxpayers in rooms full of men.
Ismaeli Lida, which manages a private school, was sitting next to her bearded Talib as she examined her tax status on a computer. She said no one complained that she had talked to a male employee about her taxes without a male cousin.
According to the previous government, Mrs. Ismaeli said, never knew if her taxes went to the government or in the pockets of the employees she paid.
“The system is better now – it’s more fair,” she said.
Down the darkened corridor, Mohammad Taqi Irfani, the money exchanger, landed across a computer screen with a tax employee. Mr. Irfani seemed to have resigned for estimated tax payments of 73,500 Afghanistan, or about $ 1,080, on annual earnings.
He said he didn’t enjoy paying taxes – who does it? – But his tax burden is obviously explained to him, and his business accounts have not been called into question. Under the government supporting American, he said, the taxpayers came to his office and asked for a bribe to reduce their tax estimate.
“They were just making money for themselves,” he said. “So far under this government, no one has ever asked me from myth.”
Safiullah Padshah and Yaqoob Akbary contribute to reporting.
