AfricaPress-Tanzania: PRESIDENT Samia Suluhu Hassan has given the new Finance Minister, Dr Mwigulu Nchemba a tax revenue collection target of 2tri/- per month and to stop killing the goose that lays golden eggs.
President Samia said the Finance Ministry’s approach in tax collection was counterproductive and it was killing off businesses and scaring away investors.
She made the remarks at the swearing-in ceremony of new Chief Secretary, Ambassador Hussein Kattanga and newly-appointed and reshuffled ministers and deputy ministers in Dodoma on Thursday.
“We want 2tri/- per month. You should widen the tax base but you should also create more taxpayers,” she directed the new Finance and Planning Minister, Dr Nchemba.
“The trend you go with is killing off the taxpayers. You’re killing off the business people. You’re using force instead of intelligence and knowledge in tax collection,” President Samia added at the ceremony held at Chamwino State House.
The president told the minister to adopt a more efficient tax collection approach that would encourage compliance instead of the current trend of using force which has raised concerns among the business community of being counterproductive.
“The ones you milk them dry and seize their property…take away money from their accounts and freeze their accounts just because the law allows that …they will close their businesses and shift to another country,” said the president.
The president was cementing Vice-President Dr Philip Mpango’s call to his successor, Dr Nchemba to ensure the government’s monthly revenue collection reaches 2tri/- by end of this year.
Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) planned to collect 20.3tri/- in the fiscal year 2020/21 and in the first six months of the financial year it collected 9.983tri/- which is almost 50 per cent of the target.
TRA Commissioner General, Dr Edwin Mhede, told a press conference in January that the average monthly revenue collections reached 1.664tri/- during the first six months of the 2020/21 financial year up from 1.5tri/- recorded during a similar period the year before.
He said they were optimistic of meeting 2020/21 fiscal year revenue collection target through widening the tax base through the registration of tax identification numbers (TINs) by employees countrywide and improvements in the use of Electronic Fiscal Device (EFD) tax receipts.
The government has formed a special task force in tax collection that is widely credited for surging in collection but it has raised complaints of harsh treatment of taxpayers leading to business closures and scaring away of investors.
But the government defended the decision to use the special task force in tax collection, saying legal procedures were followed in constituting the team.
The government issued its position when responding to concerns raised by Members of Parliament in relation to its decision to deploy a special task force in tax revenue collection.
Former Minister of Constitutional and Legal Affairs, Dr Nchemba who spoke on behalf of former Minister of Finance and Planning Dr Phillip Mpango, in Parliament last February said the task forces were used where there was enough evidence on the presence of businessmen who are cheating to pay tax and that Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) has been leading the teams in all the operations.
Nchemba issued the clarification while winding up the government motion on the third Five-Year National Development Plan slated for 2021/22 to 2025/26 and priorities set in the proposals for the roadmap plans for the year 2021/2022.
