Health workers had protested the move by the medical charity - MSF to slash their accumulated benefits using what they describe as a new tax code/Deng Kuol

The Ministry of Labor has suspended the tax on all private sector employee benefits in the country.

The Minister of Labor, James Hoth Mai, said the National Revenue Authority will soon issue a circular that will remove taxes on all national social insurance tax until the government harmonizes the system.

“We already met and what we agreed is that we are not going to tax until we harmonize the laws,” said the labor minister.

“So, the NRA will issue a circular o that regard that we have to suspend and we will not tax these people until we harmonize. For all people who are working in the private sector, their national social insurance will not be taxed.”

This comes after some staff of medical charity – MSF deployed at Aweil Civil Hospital went on strike after they were notified that their accumulated benefits would be taxed.

According to the Ministry of Labour, there are two contradicting laws regarding taxes related to employees’ benefits.

The 2009 Taxation Act requires employee benefits to be taxed while the 1990 Sudan Social Security Act does not.

Earlier, the former Commissioner of the National Revenue Authority, Dr. Olympio Attipoe issued a ruling on the matter, halting taxation of employee benefits until the two laws are harmonized.