MONROVIA — Liberia's third-biggest taxpayer this year is its own payroll office.

The Civil Service Agency is credited with US$41.1 million from January through October on the Liberia Revenue Authority's list of top revenue contributors. Only two mining companies paid more. The government's own wage bill outranks Orange Liberia, every bank, every fuel importer and every private business in the country.

The figure almost certainly reflects income tax withheld from public employees' pay and handed to the LRA. That is how a payroll office ends up on a list of taxpayers. Money the government pays its workers comes back to it as tax. The revenue is real, and it counts toward the record collections the government has celebrated this year.

Collections have risen fast. The LRA said it collected about US$818 million in 2025, beating its target of US$804.6 million and up from US$699 million in 2024. For 2026, it set a target of US$1.176 billion. Collections passed US$1 billion by mid-September.

The LRA's year-to-date figures through Oct. 31 show where much of that money comes from. The 10 biggest contributors paid US$570.7 million. ArcelorMittal Liberia accounted for US$276 million and Bea Mountain Mining Company for US$125 million, together 70% of the top 10.

ArcelorMittal's total is inflated by a single transaction. In March, the company paid a one-time US$200 million fee to extend its mining rights to 2050 and reserve capacity on the Tokadeh-Buchanan railway, a payment the International Monetary Fund has confirmed. Strip out that fee and ArcelorMittal's contribution this year falls to about US$76 million. The fee also explains the company's uneven monthly payments: it paid just US$2.7 million in October, a fraction of its average.

Without the one-time fee, the top 10 paid about US$370.7 million. Even on that basis, the two miners account for more than half. Bea Mountain has grown into one of the state's most important payers. Its US$125 million in 10 months is more than three times the US$37.6 million the Liberia Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative recorded from the gold miner for all of 2023, though the two sources count payments differently. In October alone, Bea Mountain paid US$16.6 million, more than any other contributor and six times ArcelorMittal's payment for the month.

Once the miners and the government's own payroll are set aside, much of the rest of the list is also less than it appears.

Fuel importers form the next largest block. Aminata & Sons paid US$21.8 million, Conex Petroleum Services US$16.3 million and West Oil Investment Liberia US$12.3 million, together more than US$50 million. Most of what fuel importers pay is import duty and petroleum petroleumtax, built into the price at the pump. The companies write the checks. Drivers, commercial transport operators, generator users and, through them, nearly every household bear the cost. The same is likely true of much of the US$14 million paid by Monrovia Breweries, which is largely excise on beer and drinks.

On the adjusted figures, the two miners, the government's payroll, the fuel importers and the brewery account for about US$306.5 million of the US$370.7 million paid by the top 10. That leaves about US$64 million, roughly 17%, from the remaining three:

What emerges is a revenue base resting on commodity exports, consumption taxes and the government's own wage bill. Comparatively little comes from profitable private Liberian businesses paying tax on what they earn.

The absences are as telling as the names on the list.

Lonestar Cell MTN, Orange's main competitor in mobile telephony, does not appear among the top 10, which means it paid less than the US$12 million that marks the cutoff. No bank appears. Neither does Firestone Liberia. The rubber company paid US$11.6 million in 2023, according to the LEITI's most recent report, making it the third-largest extractive payer that year, but it does not reach the top 10 this year. Nor does any palm oil concession or other agricultural company.

The list does not say why. Lower profits, tax holidays and incentives in concession agreements, losses carried forward and arrears could each explain part of it. But the gaps show how narrow the taxpaying base remains outside two mines, and how little the sectors that employ most Liberians, agriculture and small trade, contribute directly to the treasury.

The IMF said tax revenue rose to 15.9% of gross domestic product in 2025, from 14.5% in 2024. It has pointed to a planned value-added tax in 2027 and mining tax reforms as critical to sustaining the gains. A World Bank review of Liberia's public finances put the country's tax compliance gap at about 3% of GDP, money owed under existing laws that goes uncollected.

The October figures also show where some newer money is coming from, and the questions that come with it.

APM Terminals paid US$2.6 million in October, well above its monthly average of US$1.66 million this year. That came the same month Gbarpolu County Sen. Amara M. Konneh asked the Senate to summon the port operator and others over container delays and what he called "a multiplicity of opaque transaction costs and fees" passed on to consumers.

To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you.

There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later.

October's top 10 also includes a new name, "LTMI Collection," with US$1.4 million. That appears to be revenue collected through Liberia Traffic Management Inc., the private operator that took over vehicle registration and driver licensing from the Ministry of Transport on March 1. That followed a February directive from Boakai activating a 25-year concession first signed in 2018. The concession has been challenged in both houses of the Legislature.

The LRA is collecting more, its systems are expanding, and some sources, Bea Mountain above all, are growing quickly. But the figures suggest the record year rests on a few pillars, and each carries a risk.

Mining revenue depends on world gold and iron ore prices and on operations at two companies. A drop in either, or a stoppage at either mine, would hit the treasury directly. ArcelorMittal's US$200 million fee was a one-time payment, and the government cannot count on it again to fund recurring spending. Revenue from fuel and drink falls hardest on ordinary households. And the tax withheld from civil servants' pay grows only as fast as the government's own wage bill, which the same revenue must pay for.

Read the original article on Liberian Investigator.

AllAfrica publishes around 600 reports a day from more than 90 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.

AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa - aggregating, producing and distributing 600 news and information items daily from over 90 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public. We operate from Cape Town, Dakar, Abuja, Johannesburg, Nairobi and Washington DC.

To complete the process, please follow the instructions in the email we just sent you.

There was a problem processing your submission. Please try again later.