While the billboards in the urban areas are bright, the financial sector is dark. Municipalities that have the right to put up hoarding boards have handed over the responsibility of collecting the tax to contractors. As a result, the local level is losing the revenue received through the hoarding board, and the bullying of contractors has become institutionalized even in sensitive processes like tax collection.

Advertisers themselves are alarmed by the expropriation of contractors who have the right to collect tax. Therefore, it is indispensable to make all types of outdoor advertising (including hoarding board, flex, glow-sign board, banner, poster, shutter painting and wall painting) and tax systematic, transparent and accountable. The intervention of the constitutional body like the authority is necessary to stop the situation happening in this. 

Outdoor The biggest expense of advertising is the cost of advertising design, production and placement of the board . That business transaction will be done by mutual agreement. However, the tax charged for placing advertisements in that way cannot be molahiza, it cannot be done. However, municipalities have been mobilizing contractors to collect the same tax.

The local level has also given excuses saying that there is no option to give the contract because the issue of tax is more complicated and there is a lack of manpower. However, giving the responsibility and authority of tax assessment and collection to contractors is corruption in itself. But why this is happening, there is a strong combination of people's representatives, employees and contractors. During the study conducted by the Advertising Board, it was found that out of 37 surveyed, only 25 local levels kept a record of the income from outdoor advertising. Where to look for more open examples of corruption?

The power to levy and collect taxes on outdoor advertising is given to the state and local levels by the Constitution and the Local Government Operation Act. According to the Inter-Governmental Finance Management Act 2074, 60 percent of the amount raised from such advertising tax should be deposited in the local reserve fund and 40 percent in the provincial reserve fund. However, according to the 'final report on the study of the advertising market through on-site outdoor advertising (hoarding board)' published by the Regulatory Advertising Board in June 2081, 74 percent of municipalities have given contracts to collect such revenue.

According to the Local Economic Act and the Public Procurement Act, municipalities claim that 'advertisement tax can be collected by mobilizing internal manpower or through bidding process'. But they have been choosing to collect revenue through contracts rather than mobilizing internal manpower. As a result, billions of rupees of revenue are being lost. Currently, there is a data of outdoor advertising including hoarding boards collecting revenue of around 19 billion 26 million rupees across the country, but only around 2 billion 37 million revenue is being collected. Clearly, the process of collecting tax from advertisers is opaque and chaotic.

Often the financial resources of the local level are not strong. Therefore, they have to depend on federal government grants. However, outdoor advertising in your area can be a good source of income. An example is Kathmandu Metropolitan City. According to the Revenue Department of the Metropolitan Municipality, 14.45 lakh 31 thousand rupees were collected from advertisement tax in the financial year 2081/82. According to the study, there is a possibility of increasing the internal income of the local level from 9 to 41 percent if they collect the revenue themselves. It is not only a matter of financial income, but also the utilization of the rights and responsibilities granted to the local level. However, they are indifferent towards this. They have not been able to utilize the sources of income like advertisement tax, land tax and real estate tax. 

Giving the task of tax collection to contractors is polluting the advertising sector itself. In some municipalities, the contractors have even done the work of forcibly confiscating and scaring the advertisers. For example, in Bharatpur Metropolitan City, Pranish Construction wrote 'Tax Not Paid' on the compound wall of Coca-Cola Company's contact office and painted black on the logo.

The contractor who had sent a bill worth crores of rupees to the multinational company Unilever went to the office in India saying that he had not received the payment. Similarly, submitting voluntary bills, pressuring for payment, sending a large number of people, indecent behavior and verbal abuse, making unnecessary calls, threatening, and tearing advertisements randomly are also done. It is unfortunate that such an act is institutionalized by the state.  As long as the