For several months, the Togolese Revenue Office (OTR) has been conducting an awareness campaign on “tax citizenship”. First by an intense press campaign, the operation of Commissioner General Tchodié has just picked up cruising speed in what seems to be a burlesque, disgusting turn, by making Emmanuel Adebayor, the emblematic ex-captain of the Eperviers , the OTR ambassador.
An agreement was signed in this context, on July 13, between the SEA Foundation (Sheyi Emmanuel Adebayor Foundation) and the OTR.
The former Arsenal, Manchester City and Real Madrid striker thus becomes the torchbearer of the campaign. The birds of the Togolese farmyard have not finished giggling at the news. Is the multimillionaire in Euros Emmanuel Adebayor, who has his fortune abroad, legitimate to be the mascot, the showcase of a public operation whose proclaimed goal is to encourage taxpayers to consent to the payment of tax ?
Certainly, the issue of tax compliance is important for any nation. Structuring, even… It is even more so now when our public finances are in turmoil (at low water), when the State is regularly accused of being unable to raise taxes, when the country is cited as the champion in tax evasion in West Africa… if not the champion of the world, if capital flight were related to the nation’s GDP.
Undoubtedly, in a country where the people are ignorant of their duties but quick to claim rights and expect a lot from the State, such an instruction of the Togolese citizen on the consent and the importance of taxes is an absolute necessity. .
But it would take more. It should be the subject of public debate.
Because, in any nation, the issue of tax compliance refers to its opposite: tax incivism. A term concealed by this hype orchestrated by the OTR under cover of the presidency and the Ministry of Finance. What does it consist on ? Why is there tax incivism?
The question of the utility of the tax which is a cardinal principle wants that the taxes must serve only the general interest. Is this the case in Togo?
The question of the usefulness of the tax also covers that of social peace. What is the legitimacy of the brutalities that the police and military inflict on the citizens of this country, when our taxes are used to pay their salaries and weapons? What is the legitimacy of these forces which, instead of protecting the populations against insecurity, and rather participate in brutalizing them?
The opulence of the small looting “minority”, the arrogance of the mandarins of the high administration, the embezzlement, the impunity guaranteed to all thieves, raise the question of consent, and: they feed tax incivility.
Let’s go further: what civility is there in paying taxes, if they are to be diverted, misused, used other than in the interest of the taxpayer, or even illegally used against him?
The implicit contract binding any republican State to its fellow citizens is that each of these contributes to public affairs with one of its resources, its blood, its voice.
In return for which, these interests will be considered in the major arbitration constituting the general interest. What happens to these contributions the State takes the money and gets out, without respecting its commitments… taxes or pizzi
All this considered, our sensitization seems to want to make the citizens take bladders for lanterns… a vast tax fraud operation. It’s time to stop this fool’s game! Taxation is a serious issue to make it play in the register of jokes that those who mislead us are fond of.
Source: The Exchequer No. 042
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