የኢትዮዽያውያን ዴሞክራቶች ድረ-ገፅEthiopian Democrats' Website

Source: Capital;

Officials of the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority (ERCA) came under fire from High End Tax payers at a consultation meeting organized by ERCA, on Friday November 11.

At the National Lottery Administration meeting hall, Addis Ababa tax payers grievingly accused employees of the tax authority as incompetent.

The meeting was held to raise awareness among a community of business owners who pay large amounts in taxes.

Nebyou Samuel, Deputy Director General of ERCA presented a research paper on tax related issues, where he said that after a recent assessment 8,900 businesses were banned from conducting business as they were found operating without a license. He further said that over 22,000 businesses were upgraded from grade C to B as these businesses have the financial capacity to pay a larger amount of tax.

The deputy director admitted that there are incompetent and corrupt employees and added that the authority is trying to boost the capacity of its employees through different trainings and further education.

However the participants shot back saying that the authority is filled with people who are only working for the government and not the public they are supposed to serve.

“The employees do not know their rights and obligations; they only try to please their superiors. This is purely the responsibility of the management that lacks the ability to create an atmosphere for the employees to be confident,” one participant said.

“The employees at the authority lack proper work ethics, they only serve the ruling party, and this kind of attitude will not change anything,” he exclaimed furiously.

Nebyou said that some business owners are involved in illegal activities and they try and find loopholes in the law and regulations.

The participants responded that the authority always ratifies laws and regulations without properly informing the public about the new regulations and imposes penalties when found not conform to the newly introduced procedures.

“The authority always goes after those it accuses of illegal activities but the proper thing is to teach the tax payers; imprisonment is not a solution,” one of the participants said.

License Renewal

The participants also talked about the chaos created this past week in relation to license renewal as the last date for renewing business licenses was on November 10 for those who end their fiscal year in July. The tax payers said that the authority should coordinate with the Ministry of Trade concerning this kind of issue to avoid such a mess or better organize itself to handle the workload that is typically larger at this time of the year. “New requirements were introduced at the Ministry of Trade to renew our license and if one day passes without renewing our license, ERCA will ban our shops from doing business,” the participants said.

“What we are doing now is checking the minimum requirements for license renewal. This is something required even in the old system of license renewing process. What our ministry does is check the document brought from the pertinent government institution that gives a certificate for business owners about the standard and quality of their services. There is no new thing that our ministry did in a bid to create unnecessary delay to our clients,” argued Amakele Yimam, Head of Corporate Communication at the Ministry of Trade.

In the new itemized licensing scheme, Ethiopia has introduced 982 licensing categories, each with its own minimum criteria for which most governmental institutions have a stake, in a bid to maintain minimum professional standard.

However, many are complaining about the system saying it is new and takes a lot of time. One businesswoman said that the business community should have been consulted before applying such kind of lengthy procedures.

“The authorities should have considered speaking with us before implementing the new procedure,” she said.

“We are in the process of developing an online licensing system. Once completed, clients can carry out their licensing need from wherever they are. We are also developing the manual system we are using currently,” Amakele said.

“The clients have four solid months to renew their licenses. However, most of the clients come late almost a few days before the deadline. That is why the chaos happens. To solve such problems we need to expand our awareness creation program,” Amakele further noted.

The ministry is strictly following businesses to make sure they have a Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), are registered for Value Added Tax (VAT) and have a valid business address.