After 4 years of war: Houthi militias still get tax resources in the country
English - Saturday 09 March 2019 الساعة 04:53 pm
Aden – NewsYemen.net
In the midst of the economic war, the major dispute between Hadi and the Houthis over the control of strategic resources and associated revenues, the Houthis are still controlling the country's tax sources.
Tax revenues are still being paid to Houthis, and tax authorities in Hadi's areas have taken no action to dry up or uproot the Houthis' finances to fund his military budget, a senior tax official told Newsyemen.
The source, who asked not to be named, said cigarette taxes are 60 billion riyals a year, 24 billion riyals are profits of banks and insurance companies and 70 billion riyals are telecom companies' taxes all go to the Houthis.
He added that Houthi's tax revenues exceeded 4 billion and a half riyals in the last year 2018, the largest revenue the tax authority have gotten since its establishment despite the suspension of the employees' salaries, whose salaries were paid by about 50% of the total taxes, as being deducted directly from the source.
The report of the United Nations experts on sanctions control in Yemen, in its latest report, mentioned that the Houthis tax Authority gathered at least 4 billion and 700 million riyals from tax resources and license fees for private telecommunications companies in 2018.
The Houthis continued to collect customs duties in the ports under their control in al-Hodeida city and its seaports. The militias continued to gather additional customs revenues in Dhamar province as all goods pass the road on their way to the North, which come from land or ports under Hadi's control.
The Houthi militias opened tax files, which the government had settled with senior taxpayers, over the past years. One of the finance officials in the capital Sana'a said to Newsyemen that the Houthis opened tax files from 2010 to 2017, Companies, banks and institutions are forced to pay, and they have no other option.
He added that the Houthi militia began in early 2019, opening the old tax files, from 2001 to 2010, and continues to collect the tax revenues forcibly.
The armed militias formed committees of 1600 members of their members to search files for all traders and senior taxpayers and at the level of district to mobilize more tax revenues.
In addition, the Houthi militias employed 300 new staff, requiring priority to be given to the people of the area in which the staff member was to be recruited and to be fluent in English in writing and in reading in order to know commercial correspondences, senior taxpayers and small traders.
