Eritrea’s ‘diaspora tax’ is funding violence and oppression
Eritreans settled abroad should not be forced to pay an illegal tax that helps keep President Afwerki’s oppressive regime afloat.
In most countries, citizens and residents pay tax to the state to receive basic services – they part with a certain percent of their income expecting roads, railways, hospitals and schools to be built and maintained, social and cultural services to be developed and the nation’s security to be ensured.
My home country, Eritrea, is not like most countries. Those living in this small, isolated low-income country on the Red Sea coast receive nothing other than anguish in exchange for their taxes. Eritrea’s roads are neglected, buildings are deteriorating and the very limited resources allocated to the country’s schools are used not to educate pupils but to indoctrinate them with state propaganda. The country’s taps have run dry, and only limited water is available for purchase in jerry cans. Electricity and petrol are also scarce and rationed.
In Eritrea, it seems, the tax revenue is used not to meet the needs of citizens, but to fund longtime President Isaias Afwerki’s gulag state and ill-conceived regional adventures. Indeed, in recent years Eritrea has repeatedly been in international headlines due to its involvement in the horrific conflict in neighbouring Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
We do not know how much tax the Eritrean state is able to collect from the citizens within its borders, because the reclusive regime does not share its financial records with the world. We can, however, assume the amount on its own is not sufficient to fund the government’s extensive military excursions. The country’s closed and heavily sanctioned economy has been on the verge of collapse for decades, and citizens within its borders – many of them forced to serve in the military for most of their adult lives – have little to no opportunity to generate taxable income. So how exactly does President Afwerki pay for his regime’s regional military misadventures?
It is impossible to know for certain, but most likely using the 2 percent income tax his regime levies on Eritrean citizens settled abroad.
This so-called “diaspora tax” was imposed on Eritreans across the globe for the first time in the 1990s, soon after Eritrea’s independence from Ethiopia. Back then, most Eritreans abroad welcomed this new levy as an opportunity to contribute to the rebuilding of a country devastated by 30 years of conflict and to help the veterans of the liberation wars. The widespread understanding was that this would be a temporary arrangement and the tax would either be completely lifted or its scope and purpose better defined in law, once the parliament became fully functional and the economy stabilised. But that turning point was never reached. As the Eritrean parliament has not convened since 1997, the tax simply stayed in place, becoming one of the main sources of revenue of the regime.
Today, the diaspora tax continues to be collected by Eritrean consular offices around the world. Understandably, the Eritrean diaspora is not eager to pay a legally dubious tax that provides no benefit to themselves or their loved ones back home, but serves to keep a brutal and grossly incompetent government afloat.
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Re: Eritrea’s ‘diaspora tax’ is funding violence and oppression (Al Jazeera)
Lies lies lies
Here is where Diaspora tax money goes to
Here is where Diaspora tax money goes to
Re: Eritrea’s ‘diaspora tax’ is funding violence and oppression (Al Jazeera)
When we say agame have the lowest IQ in the animal kingdom, it's not without reason. Here's the slave Meles Zenawi begging the United States to make it a felony offense for US citizens living/working worldwide who file an income tax return in the US. Why would the US change its tax laws just to make the inferior agame happy? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
