Tax evasion is treason-Canisius
By AARON CHIYANZO
IT IS treasonable for a leader, or a person that seeks to lead to engage in tactics that undertakes to avoid paying tax as such action is tantamount to killing citizens, former UPND vice president for politics, Canisius Banda has charged.
And opposition UPND, leader Hakainde Hichilema, who has been named in the Paradise Papers as one of the 120 politicians across the world that had used tax havens for tax dodging purposes, has defended his decision to invest in tax havens.
The UPND leader insists there is nothing wrong with such investments.
Mr Hichilema however said that the Paradise Papers had shown how Zambians could be entrepreneurial by going on the international market to raise funds which could be invested back home and create wealth and job opportunities for Zambians.
But Dr Banda said that any citizen, whether in government or not, that undertook to avoid paying tax was a veritable enemy of the State.
He reiterated that when such a person was a leader, or seeks to lead, the case took on even more serious connotations and that it became even more dangerous as to be treasonable.
Dr Banda said that all citizens should pay tax as it was the same tax that any country used to run social services like health and education.
He charged in an interview with the Daily Nation that it was treasonable for a leader, or a person that seeks to lead to engage in tactics that undertakes to avoid paying tax.
Dr Banda said that avoiding to pay tax could be legal, but that it was immoral and tantamount to killing citizens.
“The same people that have robbed Zambia are now mocking it for its poverty. What evil is this? Any citizen, whether in government or not, that undertakes to avoid paying tax is a veritable enemy of the State.
“And when such a person is a leader, or seeks to lead, the case takes on even more serious connotations. It becomes even more dangerous as to be treasonable,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Banda warned that tax avoidance was what got former British Prime Minister, David Cameron into trouble when leaked papers’ alleged that he had avoided paying tax by stashing away cash he had earned off-shore, away from Britain.
Dr Banda said that the British people never saw Mr Cameron the same again and that their respect for him decreased or vanished.
He also pointed out that all business transactions should attract taxation as part of the reason services were either poor or inaccessible for many citizens today was because some people and business entities were engaged in tax avoidance.
Dr Banda said that tax evasion or avoidance was inimical to the wellbeing of any nation.
He charged that the mining sector in Zambia had robbed the country of its wealth, billions of US dollars, using such nefarious mechanisms and that because of this, the country was poor, and said to be the third hungriest in the world.