When tax exceeds service charge

The common person’s understanding of tax is that it is a percentage that government collects on an earning. Usually, the tax is lower than the charge. The billboard on the Masauko Chipembere Highway in Blantyre advertising budget flight from Lilongwe to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, however, places a K21 000 tax on an air ticket that FastJet charges K12 000. No wonder German-born theoretical physicist Albert Einstein once said: “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” In the picture, the billboard transparently explaining what goes in the transaction.—