Author: EDWARD QORRO, Arusha
AfricaPress-Tanzania: REGIONAL revenue authorities have convened here for the 48th edition of the East African Revenue Authorities Commissioners Generals (EARACGs).
Among other things, the taxmen from the six East African Community partner states virtually shared experiences with a view of addressing challenges facing tax administrations in the regional economic grouping.
Dubbed ‘Rethink, Restart and Reinvent; Our Road to Recovery’, the meeting delved on lessons learnt by the EAC countries during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the innovative approaches that will shore up revenue within the bloc.
The taxmen also revisited the responses to Commissioners General’s (CGs) directives during the 47th meeting for the period of January to June 2020, emerging issues within the Customs Union, cooperation with international actors in international taxation, and induction of new CGs into the forum.
Other important areas included feedback on review of performance of the Single Customs Territory (SCT) for the whole value chain of imports and transit goods by analysing transit declarations right from the point of entry to the destinations.
This will assist to eliminate dumping and transit diversions.
It also received feedback on the progress on achieving a joint approach to the development of the Data Governance Policy to promote the usage of data for decision-making.
The meeting comes amidst resilience test, with most countries having registered an economic slowdown due to significant scaling down of business activities attributed to Covid-19 cases reported in the regional body.
The coronavirus pandemic is currently causing significant adverse impact on the global economy with governments around the world implementing various fiscal measures to mitigate its effects and provide relief for businesses and households.
Within Africa, the impacts of Covid-19 are being felt in different ways and the measures taken by the respective governments have also differed on the areas of focus and comprehensiveness.
According to Deloitte Africa’s projected Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 3.2 per cent for 2020 is now expected to fall to -0.8 per cent, due to enforced partial or total lockdown of economies brought on by the pandemic.
The outbreak has led to disruption in the various sectors, most notably the financial industry and the tourism and hospitality sectors.
