THE government, through Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), has planned to strengthen the revenue collection management on the Airtime Monitoring System and to keep insisting on the use of Electronic Fiscal Devises (EFDs) among business people, as a way of expanding the revenue base for the financial year 2015/16.

Other strategies are to improve the voluntary tax payment by international companies, expansion of the tax base for the informal sector as well as to reduce tax exemptions.

The Finance Minister, Ms SAADA Mkuya Salum, told the Parliamentary Budget Committee in Dar es Salaam that the strategies seek to increase the domestic revenues from sources.

She said in the financial year 2014/15 TRA was required to collect 11,318,221.9m/- which was a 20.6 per cent addition to the total revenue collected in 2013/2014.

About 203,821m/- was expected to be collected as a result of the amended tax system through the Finance Act of 2014, and the tax collected was also expected to contribute for 93 per cent of the domestic revenue. And the remaining seven per cent is expected to come from Local government collection.

According to the report that she presented to the committee, the government has also planned to improve revenues especially in customs taxes by using the Tanzania Customs Integrated System (TANCIS).

The system is built on hitech principles with a view to increasing effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, and reliability in the Customs administration.

“Among the strategies, TRA also included close monitoring of cargo that has also been estimated, improve the monitoring of the fuel products that are imported in the country and to control smuggling conducted in Indian Ocean and by roads,” said the minister.

For their side, members of the committee urged the government to recognise and include the informal sector in revenue data base due to the fact that the country’s economy depends on both formal and informal sectors.

Nominated legislator James Mbatia said that the informal sector plays a crucial role in daily life, therefore it is important for the Authority to impose policy and strategy to ensure that they are reached by the government and that they pay the accurate tax basing on the business conducted.

The committee also insisted on the discipline on the uses of the public funds among government officials as a way forward to reduce dependency on foreign aids.

“There must be discipline on public fund spending if we really want the national budget to work,” said Mr Mbatia, adding that the government should make efforts to resolve the emerging misunderstandings with business people on the uses of Electronic Fiscal Devices (EFDs) machines.

Reacting to the argument, the TRA commissioner General, Rished Bade, said that the government was keen to settle the dispute with businessmen as they have already formed a reconciliation committee.

“We are doing our best to solve this problem as our focus is to ensure that government collects taxes from all eligible sources,” he confirmed.

He added that business people were already educated on the importance and the use of these machines.

Source: Daily News

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