Tax experts said Friday that the U.s. government has overpaid $100 million in tax on goods and services from peacekeeping operations in the African country of Mali, despite a U.n. arms embargo.
In the latest blow to the U, the Treasury Department has already paid $9 million in U.k. sales taxes on weapons and military equipment that the Mali government has seized from foreign military personnel, according to the report by tax specialists PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The tax on U. s arms and equipment that Mali has seized is also at the highest level seen in the Us. history, the report said.
U. s sales taxes for the year ended March 31, 2016, totaled $98.7 million, a record amount, according a Pricewaterhill analysis of government records.
The tax was nearly $2 billion higher than the previous year.
In 2015, sales taxes totaled $77.6 million.
In response to the rising cost of U s military equipment, the Mali Parliament passed a law on Tuesday that imposes a 10 percent excise tax on all exports of U ntermost Security Council missions, and imposes a 15 percent tax on military-grade weaponry.
The excise tax is meant to encourage U. nterhighest Security Council mission personnel to transfer their military equipment to other missions.
U s sales tax on arms and military gear that Mali seized from the U s was nearly double the $1.8 billion U.K. has paid in excise taxes on U s weapons and equipment, according the report.
The U. k. also collected an additional $1 billion in sales tax from the sale of the equipment.
The Mali government says it will use the additional tax revenue to purchase weapons and other equipment for peacekeeping missions.
