MASERU — The Lesotho Revenue Authority (LRA) and the Ministry of Education and Training will hold a school debating competition as part of an information dissemination campaign on tax issues.
The competition, which is open to 140 schools, is also aimed at cultivating a culture of tax compliance around the country. The competition will run from March 4 to April 9 2010.
“In an effort to improve compliance culture, LRA reorganised itself to ensure high quality education and information dissemination to the taxpayers and the public at large,” said Maleshoane Morakabi, who is the LRA commissioner of taxpayer services.
Morakabi said there was general lack of knowledge regarding issues of taxation resulting in very low tax compliance at national level.
She said the purpose of the debating competition was to instil a culture of compliance by targeting students to ensure they grow up appreciating their tax obligations from a tender age.
“This initiative is meant to bring the cultural change, whereby taxation issues would be discussed and understood at school level,” Morakabi said.
“The underlying principle is to catch them young and implant tax knowledge in order to encourage compliance.”
The students are expected to debate the following motions: This house believes that tax education should be compulsory at high school; This house believes that it is not fair for Basotho to pay tax on their hard-earned money; This house believes that taxes do not improve the lives of Basotho people.
Participating schools will be drawn from Leribe, Mohale’s Hoek, Mafeteng, Maseru and Berea.
