He is the Taxman of Kabul, a bearded, black-turbaned Talib with a genial manner and the calculating mind of a computer-savvy accountant.
As director of the Taliban’s Taxpayers Services Directorate, Abdul Qahar Ghorbandi has the unenviable task of raising revenue for the government of a wretchedly poor, isolated nation.
From his perch behind an enormous desk next to a black and white Taliban flag, Mr. Ghorbandi rides herd on hundreds of Afghan taxpayers each weekday. He makes sure they arrive with income documentation and leave with a fistful of tax forms to fill out.
Teachers, money changers, truckers, wedding planners, grocers and others trudge the worn hallways of the imposing tax building, discussing their taxes with Talibs pecking away at computer terminals.
The Taliban have sought to ramp up tax collection after a severe economic contraction that followed their takeover in 2021. The authoritarian regime has been crippled by sanctions, in part over its harsh restrictions on women and girls.
U.S. aid, drastically reduced since 2021, could be eliminated entirely under President Trump’s budget cuts. That aid has gone to the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations working in Afghanistan, not directly to the Taliban government.
With the Taliban now in power, former guerrilla fighters must function as bureaucrats. In the 280-person tax department, they work alongside employees inherited from the U.S.-backed government that the Taliban overthrew.
“At the same table we have people with turbans, with beards, next to people with suits,” said Mohammad Walid Haqmal, spokesman for the Ministry of Finance.
The Taxman himself, Mr. Ghorbandi, was an undercover operative for the Taliban in Kabul before becoming a civil servant, he said.
Mr. Ghorbandi, who said he had a master’s degree in computer science, presides over a tax administration computer system converted from English into Pashto and Dari. He has hired IT experts to modernize the department.
He has also tried to instill a culture of transparency, he said as he took a break for a lunch of beef kebabs and rice. His employees are not permitted to handle cash. Taxpayers take their forms to a government-run bank and pay taxes there.
When he is not at his desk signing reams of documents delivered by aides hustling in and out, he said, he visits different sections of his department, asking taxpayers how he could make the process faster.
International observers say the Taliban have reduced the tax corruption and cronyism that Afghans say were rampant under the U.S.-aligned government, while streamlining the process of collecting taxes.
Although many well-connected Afghans once avoided paying taxes, Mr. Ghorbandi stressed that even as the government Taxman, he was not exempt. He said he paid 30,000 afghanis a month, or a little over $400.
However open and efficient, it is still a tax office, though, and not every taxpayer leaves satisfied.
Shamsurahman Shams, who showed up one day late last year, had a beef with the Taxman. He said the two private schools he helped run had not turned a profit the past three years — and he carried a plastic folder stuffed with documents to prove it. Yet he had been assessed 500,000 afghanis, or about $7,350, in taxes.
He engaged in a spirited but civil discussion with a department employee, showing the man his documents. There was no resolution. He was told to return later to resume negotiations.
Although it was not the outcome he had hoped for, Mr. Shams conceded that the new process was more transparent than the previous system. “At least they listened to me,” he said.
During the war, the Taliban ran a lucrative tax system that levied customs duties, trucking fees and local taxes in areas they controlled. They also earned millions by imposing 10 percent taxes — “ushar” in Islam — on poppy farmers, though they have since banned poppy production.
In 2023, the Taliban government collected about $3 billion in taxes, customs and fees, or 15.5 percent of gross domestic product. (The comparable rate in the United States was 25.2 percent). The biggest source for the Taliban was so-called nontax revenue — customs duties, mining revenues, telecom licenses, airport charges, and fees for national ID cards, passports and visas, the World Bank reported. That revenue, for the first half of last year, increased 27 percent compared with the same period the previous year.
Half of government revenues were spent on security and the military last year, and just 26 percent on social programs — most of that on education for boys, according to international observers.
Mr. Ghorbandi said the tax system was not designed to be punitive. Generous exemptions mean that most ordinary Afghans do not pay income taxes. Shopkeepers with annual sales below two million afghanis, or about $29,500, also are exempt.
Merchants with earnings over that amount are taxed at just 0.3 percent — a rate that American conservatives would surely appreciate.
There are no cash penalties or interest fees for taxpayers who do not pony up on time. But scofflaws can lose their business licenses and access to the banking system.
“We are human,” Mr. Ghorbandi said. “We don’t want to put burdens on our people.”
He and Mr. Haqmal, the Finance Ministry spokesman, said the ultimate goal was to eliminate all income taxes.
“It is a direct order from our supreme leader,” Mr. Haqmal said. “He said: ‘I need a tax-free Afghanistan.’” Mr. Haqmal was referring to Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s emir and head of state.
Another direct order from Sheikh Haibatullah has been the shredding of women’s rights and broader restrictions on civil liberties for all Afghans. Women are prohibited from traveling any significant distance without a male relative and are obligated to cover their entire bodies and faces in public. The sound of a woman’s voice outside her home is banned.
A striking feature of the tax department’s 15 sections in Kabul is the sight of female taxpayers in rooms crammed with men.
Lida Ismaeli, who operates a private school, sat next to a bearded Talib as he reviewed her tax status on a computer. She said no one had complained that she spoke with a male employee about her taxes with no male relative present.
Under the previous government, Ms. Ismaeli said, she never knew whether her taxes went to the government or into the pockets of the employee she paid.
“The system is better now — it’s more fair,” she said.
Down a darkened hallway, Mohammad Taqi Irfani, a money changer, huddled over a computer screen with a tax employee. Mr. Irfani seemed resigned to his assessed tax payment of 73,500 afghanis, or about $1,080, on his annual earnings.
He said he did not enjoy paying taxes — who does? — but his tax burden was clearly explained to him, and his business accounts were not questioned. Under the American-backed government, he said, tax collectors came to his office and demanded bribes to lower his tax assessment.
“They were in it just to make money for themselves,” he said. “So far under this government, no one has ever asked me for a bribe.”
Safiullah Padshah and Yaqoob Akbary contributed reporting.
