PABSON says schools will rather close down than pay tax

A week after Finance Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai said the government would not allow students of private schools that fail to pay Education Service Tax (EST) to take the upcoming School Leaving Certificate (SLC) exams, school owners have said they would rather close down the schools than pay the EST.

Speaking at a press conference organised in the capital on Tuesday, Bhoj Bahadur Shah, chairman of Private and Boarding Schools’ Organisation, Nepal (PABSON)-the umbrella organisation of private schools-said they were not in a position to pay any tax to the government and would rather hand over the schools to the government.

We are running the schools without a penny from the government; we will let the government run the schools if it can, said Shah.

He also warned to bring the students to the streets to protest if the government does not allow them to take the SLC exams.

In response, Finance Minister Bhattarai said such stance of the schools would be taken as dissidence with regulations of the statutory government and would be dealt with legally.

The government had announced 5% EST through the budget speech in September, last year. Only a handful of schools have paid the tax so far. There are about 10,000 private schools in Nepal.

Students taking the SLC exam in April are in a confusion due to the row between their schools and the government. nepalnews.com Feb 25 09

Source : http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2009/feb/feb25/news03.php