Kathmandu- Indramani Giri, who hails from Jhapa, is running a small business in Kathmandu. He is not sure on whether taxes he pays to government are being utilised. He says he pays tax to government every year but he doesn’t know how the government spends it. It is the duty of every citizen to pay tax in return to the services offered by the government. It is the responsibility of people towards their state.

Citizens are directly or indirectly paying taxes to the government. Taxes are charged while purchasing the daily commodities and other goods. Every tax amount paid by people translates into the income of the government. The administrative, economic, educational and other responsibilities of the state are carried out through this income. Citizens are paying tax to the government but there is no public awareness about questioning the utilisation of the tax. However, to strengthen democratic institutions responsible citizens should ask concerned authorities on how their tax amounts are being spent.

There is not much information available on how much of the educational tax levied to people will be spent on the area of education. Bharat Thapa, a resident of Kathmandu, feels the money he pays in the form of tax is not being used in proper manner. He argued that the education would not be categorised into public and private education if the tax amount was utilised.  Durga Phuyal says the country and its administration is functioning on the basis of tax paid by citizen.

All of them agree that the educational responsibility entrusted to local governments can be fulfilled properly if taxation imposed on citizens is invested in education. Sushma Sapkota, another Kathmandu resident says, there is no proper result of the investment made by state in education. She says she is disappointed regarding the way in which the revenues generated from people are being spent by the government.  Saroj Prajapati insists that certain percentage of the tax charged to citizen should be spent on education. He says the negligence by state authorities is pushing the Nepali education sector towards a failure.

Spokesman of the Education Ministry Dr. Hari Prasad Lamsal says the local government should accord top priority to education. He says the local government should use their own income and invest budget provided by provincial and central government on education.