Nepal’s Taxonomy
Nepali Times ईspecial 16 - 22 May 2025 #1261
Dear Taxpayers and Evaders,
No government can function without revenue, and it is good to see that Nepal’s Minister of Underfinance is putting our hard-earned taxes to good use by raising new taxes in the upcoming budget. That is what we pay him for.
FinMin taxidermists are turning Nepal into a tax heaven. The few who still have disposable income will henceforth no longer be allowed to keep the non-performing assets they have amassed locked away unproductively.
But we have it on good authoritarians that Lord Vishnu is also trying to evade raising taxes to appease certain businesses. At this rate, we will never meet our targets for corruption, waste and sloth.
So, here are some revenue-raising tips for the Department of Taxonomy:
Extortion: Don’t just impose new taxes, use other tricks in the Red Book like blackmail, ransom, daylight robbery.
There need not be any embarrassment about embezzlement, and the grabberment can start requiring VAT receipts for all bribes and kickbacks.
Impose a 50% Capital Flight Duty on all hard cash transactions being smuggled out of Kathmandu Airport in false bottoms.
Hundi Levy: A 10% tax on the estimated $10billion that is sent to Nepal through informal channels will yield $1 billion a year — enough to balance the budget.
Solar Tax: It has come to the notice of the Ministry of Finance that rooftop solar panels are illegally tapping sunlight to generate electricity absolutely tax-free. This will not do because as we all know absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Besides sunshine, a 100% tariff will be imposed on moonshine. There will be a Syntax on homemade liquor.
Those are the ideas that struck me as I read Ramesh Kumar’s worrying reportage on page 1 of Friday’s Nepali Times about the growing gap between revenue and expenditure. Part of the reason is economic slowdown, outmigration of tax-paying youth, and (ironically) falling imports. Nepal is governed by Reds, and it is in the red.
This is a multiple anniversary year for Himalayan mountaineering. The 75th of the first ascent of Annapurna, and 70th year after Makalu was climbed. And 16 May was the 50th anniversary of the first woman on Mt Everest. Former Japanese climber Miki Upreti profiles her compatriot Junko Tabei on page 5.
Nepali Times continues its in-depth human interest coverage of migration with the challenges faced by a Nepali migrant worker who returned from Malaysia with kidney failure, and like thousands of others is waiting for a transplant (Dying to Work Overseas, page 9).
And Episodes 66 and 67 of Diaspora Diaries are stories by two women from Janakpur who have returned after years working as housekeepers in the Gulf (Everyday Closer To Pay Day, page 10-11), and stories of a caregiver of seniors in Japan and a nurse in the UK (Nepali Nurses Caring for the World).
The mouthwatering centrefold this week has everything you wanted to know about the marvelous momo, and the joints in Kathmandu Valley steaming the tastiest ones (Momo Loco by Vishad Raj Onta, page 6-7). Also watch this video of Guchha Momo Pasal.
That is about it for now. See you all next week, same time. Same station.
Kunda Dixit