This year alone, I’ve received more than two letters from the state’s Internal Revenue Service concerning the taxes for the school I manage. This comes after paying significant amounts in various taxes. The latest letter demands the school pay a substantial sum as a backlog of taxes supposedly owed since its inception. However, they miscategorized the school as starting operations in 2019 and falsely accused us of not paying any taxes since then. This highlights their inefficiency, especially since my office is filled with receipts documenting tax payments from the school's inception to date. Honestly, what are these taxes even used for? As far as I can see, we’re paying Caesar what belongs to Caesar without receiving anything in return.
Here is footage from the CCTV bought to secure the community's transformer
Take infrastructure, for instance. Apart from the main roads, which were tarred over a decade ago and are now riddled with potholes, I can’t identify any tangible benefits of paying taxes. Governments are supposed to provide security, maintain law and order, and deliver basic amenities, but I can’t say I’ve seen much evidence of that.
On security, while we are fortunate not to face insurgency like some northern communities, we still deal with miscreants and armed robbers. The government has failed to protect us, forcing the community to make its own arrangements. I contribute about $2 monthly to a community security fund, which pays a private security firm to provide nighttime patrols.
Electricity is another issue. Yes, the government supplies us with power, but it comes at a high cost. Our community had to contribute to purchasing a step-down transformer to access the grid. Despite this transformer becoming government property, we still pay heavily to use electricity. Those with prepaid meters must recharge regularly, while others on postpaid plans face steep monthly bills. Worse still, we had to fund security measures to protect the transformer we bought for the government. This does not even include the cost individuals incur to get electricity from the transformer to their various houses.
The water supply is no better. To have water for domestic use, residents must pay for either a borehole or a manual well. After that, you need reservoirs and pumps, which rely on expensive electricity. Recently, I even heard that the government may start taxing us for pumping water from underground. Such a ridiculous prospect!
As for roads, our community is a new site with untarred, dusty roads that worsen during the rainy season. To address this, we regularly pool resources to hire graders and payloaders to smooth the roads. Just this year, I contributed about $8 for such efforts. Below are images from our community's road grading that we completed a few days ago:
After grading, we decided to construct a mini-bridge across various junctions to allow free flow of water during rainy seasons and minimize erosional damages to our road terrains. We hired the service of a local metal fabricator for the mold and utilized local labours to make the rings.
In summary, we in our community have been making personal sacrifices to keep the community functioning. All these things that we bill ourselves for are supposed to be supplied by the government since no one escapes tax payment. All these issues leave me questioning: how am I benefiting from the government? Can anyone provide a convincing answer?
Thank you for reading.
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Indeed, we are the government. Seriously you've really tried your best in that your community. No one wait for the government again. Kudos to you and your community.
Yes. Many people who don't stay in our community are envious. I pray things continue this way. We should focus on helping ourselves if the government is not forthcoming. We may not be able to fight the government, but there is strength in coming together.