AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE Minister for Finance and Planning, Dr Mwigulu Nchemba has directed departments and institutions in the ministry to come up with new strategies that will expand taxpayers’ base in a bid to increase revenue collection.
He advised the business community in the country to keep their cash in banks as he directed the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) not to charge taxes depending on one’s balance.
The minister gave the directives on Saturday when he met with the heads of departments in the ministry, TRA and Treasury Registrar for planning and finding best modules for implementation of President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s directives when he was sworn in.
Addressing the nation after swearing in the Chief Secretary, Amb Hussein Kattanga and several ministers and deputy ministers, President Samia directed the finance and planning ministry to ensure it sought new avenues of revenue collection and create more taxpayers so that revenue collection could reach 2tri/- per month.
The president said the habit of using excessive power in revenue collection was killing many businesses in the country and forcing some businessmen to move to neighbouring countries where they opened their businesses.
“This reduces the number of tax payers, I therefore urge you to go out there and expand the tax base and supervise all the issues that frustrate people from paying taxes,” she said.
Dr Nchemba directed TRA to be guided by professionalism, rules and regulations when making tax estimates since they are supposed to make sure businesses flourish instead of diminishing.
In his meeting, Dr Nchemba wanted the department to come up in a different outfit that will see the business community and taxpayers as sole partners in economic development.
“You should create new taxpayers, not victimising them and killing their businesses, you must observe the laid down rules and procedures, therefore you must correct all the mishaps and stay in line of professionalism”.
“Killing their businesses means you have also reduced the tax collection base, thus decreasing revenue generation unnecessarily for failure to observe ethics and professionalism,” he insisted.
He said TRA should not frustrate taxpayers with unjustifiable tax estimates, including suspending the operator’s bank accounts on grounds of pending tax payment since they both end up being losers.
The minister wanted TRA to observe business sustainability and must charge them accordingly instead of holding their bank accounts and freezing their accounts.
However, he called upon Tanzanians to be proud of paying tax because it is a mark of being patriotic to their country.
“Tanzanians must be proud to pay tax without being forced, because by doing so they become part and parcel of national economic development attributes” he insisted.
During the meeting which was also attended by the Deputy Minister for Finance and Planning, Hamad Masauni, they also discussed ways for harmonising financial payment systems and the government-taxpayer’s relationships in terms of revenue collection.
Also on the agenda was security and harmonisation of the financial payments systems as well as how they will implement President Samia’s directives on the need for the ministry to enhance performance.
On June 7, 2019, the fifth phase president, the late John Magufuli, led a meeting between government and businessmen, whom he gave the chance of mentioning challenges they were facing in doing their businesses.
The businessmen mentioned a number of challenges, including the government’s bureaucracy, a multiplicity of taxes and threats during revenue and duty collections.
They also mentioned a multitude of government’s institutions that collected taxes and charges, closure of businesses due to high taxes and unreal tax estimates.
