Tanzania finance minister Mpango reveals further plans to raise revenue collection

Dar es Salaam. The government said on Wednesday, March 11, 2020 that it was employing various techniques, including fostering supervision of the use of Electronic Tax Stamps (ETS), to raise revenue collections and speed up the process of creating an enabling environment for Tanzania’s industrialization journey.

Presenting the government’s development plan and budget framework estimates for 2020/21 financial year, Finance and Planning minister, Dr Philip Mpango said the country has witnessed a considerable rise in revenues during the first seven months of the 2019/20 financial year, noting however that there was a need to sustaining the achievements.

“Some of the initiatives that we will undertake [to sustain growth in revenue collections] include: ensuring that electronic fiscal devices are used properly, hastening the pace of dealing with tax assessment objections,…continue with the supervision of Electronic Tax Stamps (ETS) on exercisable goods,” Dr Mpango told Members of Parliament (MPs) in Dodoma on Wednesday.

Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) has had a good time during the first seven months of the 2019/20 financial year, with tax collections rising to record levels.

Despite the rise, the taxman was also working hard to contain some unscrupulous people who fabricate electronic tax documents purporting that they has been issued by TRA.

A number of cases were currently going on in courts whereby some people stand accused of fabricating electronic tax documents and occasioning a loss to TRA and the country at large.

A vivid example is a case involving nine people in Dar es Salaam who appeared at the Kisutu Resident’s Magistrate Court, facing 28 charges of tax evasion and occasioning a Sh31.57 billion loss to the government.

During its last month tour of duty at TRA, the Parliamentary Budget Committee urged the revenue body to ensure that ETS were rolled out to every factory.

“This system is good. I advise that it be rolled out to each and every factory irrespective of its (the factory’s) size,” said the committee’s chairman, Mr Mashimba Ndaki.

He told TRA management to keep a close eye on some of its workers who were colluding with factory owners to abuse the system.

The government planned to spend a total of Sh33.11 trillion during the 2019/20 financial year. Out of the money, Sh19.1 trillion was to be sourced in form of domestic tax revenue collection.

During the first seven months of the current financial year however, TRA managed to garner Sh10.62 trillion, which is equivalent to 96.9 per cent of a target of collecting Sh10.96 trillion during the period, Dr Mpango told MPs on Wednesday.