Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Traders importing goods from Uganda are complaining of double taxation in southern Sudan

From SRS - Sudan Radio Service, Tuesday, 27 April 2010:
(Juba, southern Sudan) – Traders importing goods from Uganda are complaining of double taxation in southern Sudan.

They claim that import tax is imposed on their goods in Nimule and in Juba by revenue authorities.

Some traders spoke to SRS in Juba on Monday.

[Trader 1]: “We clear twice. Why should we clear in Nimule as we are entering and here in Juba? In other countries, we clear once. You clear at the border and you go and offload. But not here. We clear twice; you clear from here and in Nimule. We pay for documents here and in Nimule. Don’t you see? Everything is affecting us.”

[Trader 2]: “In most of the countries, we pay once except Sudan. I don’t know why. The government of Southern Sudan has to do something about this issue!

SRS spoke to the Head of Central Equatoria Revenue Authority, Samuel Modiyang.

He explains why there is double taxation on imports.

[Samuel Modiyang]: “There are levels of government. We are in the level of state. The policy in every state is that every state has to collect money to meet the cost of government machinery. So, those local revenues are collected from the goods brought from abroad. Here, Goss and Gonu are also collecting for the national duty, which is excise duty. It is always collected at the entry point, at Nimule. When they arrive here, we collect our taxes for the state. We have a legal basis for that. We have a law which was passed by the Legislative Assembly that authorizes us to collect those taxes.”

Samuel Modiyang, the head of Central Equatoria Revenue Authority, was speaking to SRS in Juba on Monday.
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