The tax system in Tunisia favours the unfairest forms of taxation, penalises the country’s middle and lower classes, and deprives the nation of significant income, according to Oxfam.

The organisation, in a report, highlighted the contribution of the Tunisian tax system to the deepening of inequalities among the country’s citizens, drawing attention to the risk of these inequalities becoming even more pronounced with Covd-19.

Oxfam also pointed out the discrepancies in the area between employees and self-employed workers who are subject to the flat-rate scheme and whose contribution yields on average 0.2 percent of tax revenues. It stated that income from capital is also taxed less than income from labour and is taxed at a proportional rate of ten percent.

The report also dwells on the deterioration of public services, noting that ‘under the impetus of austerity policies encouraged by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the shares of education and health expenditure in the state budget fell sharply between 2011 and 2019, from 26.6 percent to 17.7 percent for education and from 6.6 percent to five percent for health respectively’.

It was noted that the pandemic, which has exposed the fragility of the public health system, is an opportunity for the government to carry out an ambitious reform of the tax system in order to meet its obligation of fiscal justice.

Source: Agency Tunis Afrique Presse

Photo source: GotCredit