AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE government has shifted the responsibility for collection of property tax from Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) to Local Government Authorities (LGAs).
The Minister of State in the President’s Office, Regional Administration and Local Government, Mr Selemani Jafo, alongside the Deputy Minister for Finance and Planning, Ms Mwanaidi Ali Khamis told reporters during a joint press conference in Dodoma on Friday that the move aims at increasing revenues.
“Effective from today (yesterday) the government tasks the municipal, city and district councils to collect property tax and advertising fees, this aims to increase revenues and ensure development for wananchi,” Mr Jafo stated.
The minister ordered city, municipal and district directors to come up with strategies that will ensure best practices in collecting revenues.
“There must be a special plan that will enable the government to collect enough revenues from all specified areas,” said Mr Jafo.
Mr Jafo said District Executive Directors and local government authorities will be the key players since they are close to wananchi who are owners of properties.
The minister tasked all councils to ensure the government gets its rightful share through property taxes and other forms of fees.
Tanzania has implemented several major reforms of the property tax collection system in recent years. In 2008, a new system for property tax collection was introduced. The reform entailed shifting the responsibility for administration and collection of property tax from the municipal councils to TRA.
The government expected this measure to increase the revenue collection. However, in February 2014, the government announced the return of property tax collection to the municipalities with immediate effect.
Moreover, in July 2016, property taxation was again centralised and TRA was assigned full responsibility for administering the tax in the country.
At least 571.12bn/- was collected from the local government authorities during 2019/20 fiscal year.
The collection was equivalent to 89.7 per cent of the target, which was to collect 765bn/-.
Speaking on Friday, Mr Jafo revealed that for the billboards placed along highways, the fees will be collected by the Tanzania National Roads Agency (TANROADS).
“TANROADS will now collect revenue from the billboards that are situated along the highways while Tanzania Rural and Urban Road Agency (TARURA) will collect the fee from billboards that are placed along roads under its supervision,” he said.
