The Middle Class Squeezed?

It seems that both the federal and local governments are competing with each other in raising the tax rates. The federal government seems squeezing the middle class in an attempt to manage funds to manage federalism, 761 governments while confused local governments are imposing tax on almost everything that carries monetary value.  

A rural municipality in Morang reportedly wanted to raise Rs. 100 per month from every bicycle owner! An average bicycle in Terai comes at the cost of about Rs. 3000 – Rs. 4000. It means your local government would take the bicycle away in less than three months! Forget about the value depreciation. However, the local government backtracked from its proposal and came up with imposing Rs. 100 tax on bicycle repairing centres. 

Likewise, a rural municipality charged Rs. 1,000 for birth registration. It’s really annoying that in the country where government provides just Rs. 1000 to every mother after child delivery as travel fare to return home while their own local government sucks that amount just to give a certificate. 

As the country is advancing with stronger implementation of federalism, there is a growing pressure on all levels of government to raise resources to manage themselves and meet people’s aspirations. And, there seems less learning from the neighbourhood since unlike Nepal, China and India both have given very less power and responsibility to the local governments. 

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 1 August 2018.