CES plans to combat multiple taxes in Juba

Central Equatoria State Ministry of Finance is set to establish mechanisms to combat multiple taxes within the city.

The State Minister of Finance, Wani Tom Sebit, said there have been overlapping powers in revenue collection between the state and the local government.

He said the two institutions would soon establish mechanisms that would harmonise the collection of taxes in Juba City.

The minister made the statement yesterday in Juba during his address to the media.

Wani revealed that he had already assigned a consultant to audit taxes collected by the local and state governments.

He said that once the final auditing is done, they would conduct a conference for the harmonisation of the taxes.

The minister said they were taking the initiative after they received several complaints from business people over high taxes.

 “Business people say the taxes are very high. They are high because of multiple people that come for the taxes,” Wani said.

He said during the conference that the CES ministry of finance and the city council should agree when the two institutions notice that they are collecting certain taxes concurrently.

“We are attempting to avoid this duplication in which so many people are collecting one single tax that can easily be collected by a single institution, and we are devising methods on how it can be shared,” Wani stated.

However, he said the taxes being paid in South Sudan is the lowest ever in the region.

“Our taxes are the lowest taxes ever levied, particularly, when you look at foreign trade. Our customs tariff is the lowest tariff in the whole world.

“This is why, when goods shoot up in the market, we asked businessmen why they were raising prices of goods when import taxes are low, and they were blaming it on the foreign currency,” he explained.

The official added that the process has already begun and that the consultant was working on formalities on how to harmonise taxes in Juba.