He is the taxer of Kabul, a bearded Talib and black tubban with a brilliant way and the calculating spirit of an accountant warned by computer.
As Director of the Taliban Taxpayers Directorate, Abdul Qahar Ghorbandi has an unnatiable task of increasing the government’s income of a miserably poor and isolated nation.
From his perch behind a huge desk next to a black and white Taliban flag, Mr. Ghorbandi sets up a herd on hundreds of Afghan taxpayers every weekday. He ensures that they arrive with income documentation and leave with a handful of tax forms to fill out.
Teachers, money changers, truckers, wedding planners, grocers and others enter the worn corridors of the taxation of taxes, discussing their taxes with talibs that slip into computer terminals.
The Taliban sought to accelerate tax collection after a serious economic contraction which followed their takeover in 2021. The authoritarian regime was paralyzed by sanctions, partly on its severe restrictions on women and girls.
American aid, considerably reduced since 2021, could be eliminated entirely under the budget cuts of President Trump. This aid has gone to the United Nations and non -governmental organizations working in Afghanistan, not directly to the Taliban government.
With the Taliban now in power, guerrilla warfarers must operate as bureaucrats. In the tax service of 280 people, they work alongside employees inherited from the government supported by the United States that the Taliban has overturned.
“At the same table, we have people with turbans, with a beard, next to people with costumes,” said Mohammad Walid Haqmal, spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance.
The taxman himself, Mr. Ghorbandi, was an infiltrated agent for the Taliban in Kabul before becoming a civil servant, he said.
Mr. Ghorbandi, who said he had a master’s degree in computer science, chairs a computer system of converted tax administration of English in Pachto and Dari. He hired IT experts to modernize the department.
He also tried to instill a transparency culture, he said, taking a break for a beef and rice kebabs lunch. Its employees are not allowed to manage money. Taxpayers take their forms from a bank managed by the government and pay taxes.
When he is not at his office, signing document trains issued by aid that launches and go out, he said, he visits different sections of his department, asking taxpayers how he could accelerate the process.
International observers say the Taliban reduced the tax corruption And the cronyism which, according to the Afghans, was going to attract under the government aligned by the United States, while rationalizing the tax collection process.
Although many well -connected Afghans once avoided paying taxes, Mr. Ghorbandi stressed that even as government tax authorities, he was not exempt. He said he had paid 30,000 Afghanis per month, just over $ 400.
Also open and effective, it is always a tax office, and not all taxpayers leave satisfied.
Shamsurahman Shams, who presented himself one day at the end of last year, had an ox with the taxman. He said that the two private schools he had helped to manage had not made any profits in the past three years – and he wore a plastic file filled with documents to prove it. However, it was evaluated 500,000 Afghanis, or about $ 7,350, in taxes.
He embarked on an animated civilian discussion with an employee of the department, showing man his documents. There was no resolution. He was told to come back later to resume negotiations.
Although it was not the result he had hoped for, Mr. Shams conceded that the new process was more transparent than the previous system. “At least they listened to me,” he said.
During the war, the Taliban led a lucrative tax regime which allowed customs duties, truck costs and local taxes in the fields they controlled. They also won millions by imposing 10% taxes – “USHAR” in Islam – on poppy farmers, although they have since prohibited the production of poppy.
In 2023, the Taliban government received around $ 3 billion in taxes, customs and costs, or 15.5% of the gross domestic product. (The rate comparable to the United States was 25.2%). The biggest source for the Taliban has been supposedly Non -tax income – Customs, mining income, telecommunications licenses, airport costs and costs for national identity cards, passports and visas, reported the World Bank. These income, for the first half of last year, increased by 27% compared to the same period in the previous year.
Half of the government’s income was spent on security and the military last year, and only 26% for social programs – most of this for boys’ education, according to international observers.
Ghorbandi said the tax system was not designed to be punitive. Generous exemptions mean that most ordinary Afghans do not pay income tax. Traders with annual sales of less than two million Afghanis, or about $ 29,500, are also exempt.
Merchants with profits on this amount are only taxed at only 0.3% – a rate that American conservatives would surely appreciate.
There are no cash penalties or interest costs for taxpayers who do not behave in time. But Scofflaws can lose its commercial licenses and access to the banking system.
“We are human,” said Mr. Ghorbandi. “We don’t want to put a burden on our people.”
He and Mr. Haqmal, the Ministry of Finance spokesman, said the ultimate objective was to eliminate all income taxes.
“It is a direct order of our supreme chief,” said Haqmal. “He said,” I need a free Afghanistan. “” Mr. Haqmal referred to Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, the emir and head of state of the Taliban.
Another direct order of Sheikh Haibatullah was the shredding of women’s rights and wider restrictions on civil freedoms for all Afghans. Women are forbidden to browse a significant distance without male and are forced to cover their whole bodies and faces in public. The sound of the voice of a woman outside her house is prohibited.
A striking feature of the 15 sections of the Tax Department in Kabul is the sight of women taxpayers in parts filled with men.
Lida Ismaeli, who operates a private school, was sitting next to a bearded Talib while he was examining his tax status on a computer. She said that no one had complained of having spoken with a male employee of her taxes without male present.
Under the previous government, Ms. Ismaeli said that she did not know if her taxes had gone to the government or in the employee’s pockets she paid.
“The system is better now-it’s fairer,” she said.
In a darkened corridor, Mohammad Taqi Irfani, a money changer, nestled on a computer screen with a tax employee. Mr. Irfani seemed to resign to his evaluated tax payment of 73,500 Afghanis, or about $ 1,080, on his annual income.
He said he hadn’t liked to pay taxes – who does it? – But his tax burden was clearly explained to him and his corporate accounts were not questioned. Under the government supported by the Americans, he said, tax collectors came to his office and asked for bribes to reduce his tax assessment.
“They were just there to earn money for themselves,” he said. “Until now, under this government, no one has ever asked me for a bridge pot.”
Safiullah Padshah And Yaqoob Akbary Contributed reports.
