“On average, villagers have to provide military government organizations with more than 10,000 kyat a month. Even though villagers have no food to eat they still have to pay them. At the hands of the SPDC the villagers have to work harder but they still have not enough food for their families.”Burma’s military regime has transformed taxation from a routine and legitimate function of government into extortion and a tool of repression. ND-Burma’s report highlights that the state of Burma is implementing a system of corrupt taxation which fails to comply with any accepted norms, fails to stop the diversion of government revenues into private pockets, and  contributes to the ongoing and systematic violation of their most basic human rights: the right to an adequate standard of living, to housing, to education and the right to be free from forced labor.

While the majority of Burma’s people live in abject poverty, the military regime and its cronies spend more than 50% of the national budget on the military and less than 1.3% on health and education combined. ND Burma’s research revealed that people are forced to hand over large proportions of their income and property in official and unofficial taxes leaving more and more people struggling to survive.

The military’s corrupt practices violate their signature of the UN Convention on Corruption and their signatures of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and Convention on the Rights of the Child. They cause longterm damage to the economy and destroys the viability of subsistence and medium scale farming and enterprises, i.e. the economic activities that that sustain most of the civilian population.  A subsistence farmer in Burma could be forced to pay more than 50% of his or her livelihood in so-called taxes.  This report documents the range of corrupt acts that occur under the guise of taxation including; farmers being forced to grow certain crops and sell them at low price to the army, goods being confiscated and not returned until a payment is given, Tatmadaw and government officials forcing people to pay arbitrary high payments at checkpoints,  forced “donations” for festivals, school buildings, etc, forced labour,  and the loss of earnings and health  or fees incurred in order to avoid these burdens.

The regime’s attacks on the civilian population take the form of murder, torture, and sexual violence, and this report demonstrates that those attacks also entail imposing severe economic hardship on the population in violation of their human rights.

“The people of Burma are poor but the regime that oppresses them is not.” Sean Turnell, Burma Economic Watch.

Contact ND Burma at office@nd-burma.org (+66 (0)53 408 149)