AMMAN — Social
media sites have been abuzz over the past few days over the news that the
Income and Sales Tax Department (ISTD) is ready to collect taxes from all
social media activists and bloggers who have defaulted on payments.
اضافة اعلان
The news was
received with mixed reactions.
The ISTD has
assigned a team, made up of its employees, to ensure that social media
activists and bloggers who make money from their activities online, income that
is taxable, submit tax returns and pay the due taxes.
ISTD consultant
Moussa Al-Tarawneh said on Thursday that the department has several ways to
follow up on the financial revenues of “social media celebrities”, check the
numbers and compare them with their financial disclosures.
Tarawneh said
that the department will use all available methods to collect the taxes due by
celebrities and social media activists, “fairly, based on the real amounts they
obtain”.
Reactions from
activists and bloggers on social media, interviewed by
Jordan News regarding the decision, varied. While some said that they encourage the
decision because the outcome will benefit the national interest, others
criticized it, saying that the government does not provide any assistance to
these people, and therefore making money from them is “illogical”.
Travel blogger
Hind Khlaifat told
Jordan News that “I strongly support this step
because the taxes derived from the money earned from advertisements on social
media sites are public funds like any other source of income,” and it is the
government’s legitimate right to tax them.
“We ask the
government to give us full services, and when it does not, we criticize it. If
we want to benefit from services, we must give the government what is
rightfully its as well, including paying taxes and financial dues,” she said.
Blogger Zayna
Hamarneh told
Jordan News: “I definitely support the decision. Everyone
must pay taxes and it is unreasonable that some workers should pay tax and
others do not, while everyone earns money, regardless of the source of income.”
She added “I
have paid tax, since I became taxable, as a Jordanian citizen and as a company
owner, and I always ask all those I work with to deduct the amount of tax from
me and to have it supplied to me after a while in the tax return”.
“I do support
each and every decision that controls and organizes the social media sector,
which is still new to all of us,” she said.
Actor and social
media activist Ahmad Massad told
Jordan News that he “deeply” regrets
the decision, especially since “the government, represented by its various
institutions, does not provide any kind of services to activists and does not
support them”.
“If the government does
not provide any kind of services to us, why do we have to pay taxes,” he asked.
Read more Features
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
