These 2 poor families don’t have 2 meals a day, but they’re facing a Rs 210million tax evasion case

Around 18 kilometres southwest of Biratnagar, the capital of Province 1, is Dhanpalthan rural municipality. The rural municipality is home to the Musahar community, most members of whom make ends meet by working in the fields of others.

As they are from a marginalised community, the majority of them live in two-room houses built by the government. That is where we found Ram Dhari Rishidev and Lakhan Rishidev.

Ram Dhari has two sons and three daughters while Lakhan has five people in his family. To ensure that they sleep with a full stomach, almost everyone from both families goes to work in people’s fields.

But, a year ago, an incident happened that rocked the two families to their core. A few people, claiming to be from District Court in Morang, came to them and handed over a letter each to both families. The language in the letter was not easy to read. They went around asking others what it meant and when they found out that a tax evasion case had been filed against them, they were both shocked.

The big letters of the law

The letter stated they had to be in court within 15 days of them getting the letter. For once, Ram Dhari felt it was a joke, but soon, he knew he had to go and started to talk to people about what he could do.

Ram Dhari is a busy man in the Musahar community. He spends his entire day working in the fields of others and that meant he did not even have time to focus on this. But, every time he would be free, he would be reminded of the letter and that would make him anxious.

The letter had ordered him to be present at Patan High Court with proof of him not evading any tax. But, he could only evade tax if he was rich. He was anything but rich as he lived his life as a daily wage worker. But, the letter had said he owed the government Rs 55.3 million in taxes. In reality, he had a tough time earning enough to break bread on a daily basis.

Lakhan was not home when the official came to give him a letter. His wife Budhani received the letter on his behalf. They did not inform her what the letter was about. When they looked in, Lakhan was accused of tax evasion worth Rs 156 million.

“I don’t know what is happening. I can’t even read or write but here am I accused of tax fraud. How can this happen,” says Lakhan.

Before the government officials rocked the lives of the two, they published a statement on November 3, 2021. Listing out people and corporations who did not pay tax, the Department of Revenue Investigation said it needed to collect tax worth Rs 2.36 billion from the listed people and corporations.