Press Release
The Increase in the Internal Revenues is not “An Achievement” but a Tyranny Brought on Afghan Oppressed People by the Capitalist System
(Translated)

The Afghan Finance Minister announced that Afghanistan’s internal revenues have reached up to 170b Afs this year. This number is a new record for the country in the last 16 years and is higher than the goal set for the Afghan government by the international organizations. The Afghan finance ministry has called this “an achievement” for the Afghan government.

We consider this increase in the revenues of the government not as an “achievement” but as a stealing from the wealth and food [from the tables] of the people because this number does not reflect any revenues stemmed from an actual economic growth, establishment of actual infrastructures, increase in production and services to facilitate and elevate the living conditions of the people. On the contrary, this revenue is collected through the imposition of the custom duties and levying taxes on the companies and others, which will only place its burden upon the shoulders of the people – who already are suffering from poverty.

The Afghan government introduced some new taxation packages – upon the recommendations of International Monetary Funds and World Bank. These packages include: levying 10 percent taxes on the telephone top up cards, a hundred percent increase of taxes on commercial transactions, increasing the fee of the use of the air-corridors, and the increase of the custom tariffs for the basic necessities. This situation will result in inflation, discouragement of the investment and an increase in unemployment and poverty whose effects are already noticeable in every level of the society.

Therefore, an increase in such numbers – regardless of its quantity – is meaningless because it is only to receive some credits from the international organizations – for the Afghan government – and has no positive effects upon the lives of its people. Such an increase can only be considered as stealing from the wealth and foods [from the tables] of the people.

Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
in Wilayah Afghanistan