The Taliban’s Drug Trade Revenue and Taxation System: What the Experts Know

This article considers what experts know about the Taliban’s drug trade revenue and the Taliban’s taxation system. The findings underscore the challenge of estimating the Taliban’s drug trade revenue and suggest that annual revenue fluctuations influenced by dynamic variables including opium crops, drug production, trafficking, prices, and territorial shifts. The Taliban mandated religious taxes, such as ushr and zakat; conventional taxes; protection payments; and in-kind support from actors involved in the drug trade. This article shows that the volatility of the variables and the Taliban’s practices require existing estimates of the Taliban’s drug trade revenue to be challenged.