By Bida Elly David
The National Revenue Authority yesterday said that the Introduction of the E-Taxation device for tax collection has contributed towards consistent increase in revenue collections.
The Deputy Commissioner for Research and Planning at the National Revenue Authority, Marial Dongril Ater made the remarks to journalists yesterday upon arrival from Juba International Airport from Wau.
The team went to Wau for a consultative workshop for the purpose of developing a five-year strategic plan for the National Revenue Authority (NRA).
NRA official Dongril Ater stated that the introduction of the E-Taxation device has simplified and legalised collection of taxes through data entry that has reduced the rate of malpractices by tax collectors.
Last year, the National Revenue Authority had registered series of corruption cases towards mechanisms used for collecting taxes at the borders and States. Which has forced the Authority to tentatively suspend collection of taxes until permission was granted by them to do so.
Mr. Marial said that traders who were previously impacted negatively by the manual tax collection system appreciated the digitalisation for the revenue collection that would mitigate corruption cases.
“Obviously the automation and the electronic tax system are helping us interims of cost reduction and it is very convenient to our tax payers. We do not have to project now. We are doing a plan and the plan will be guided by scientific forecasting elements and at this point we can’t say what we are going to collect but I know for sure given the past performance over the last ten Months of the current financial year, number has been either stabilising o increasing a little beat,’’ Marial said.
Furthermore, NRA Deputy Commissioner for Research and Planning said that despite the increase in revenue collection through the help of the E-Taxation device, some parts of the Country still lack the device due to poor infrastructure to extend the service.
“We may not expect every part of our Country to be able to have the infrastructure for the electronic tax system, but we are rolling out in the areas where we have the infrastructure and there are other ways that we are assisting the tax payers to be able to conveniently register as tax payers to pay their taxes and file their return,” the NRA official said.
“It will be a gradual roll out automation since we understand that our Country doesn’t have the infrastructure for digitalisation but this is the journey this Country has already started on. You realise that the National communication Authority is all over the Country trying to put in the infrastructure and this where the partnership of other institutions is very important,’’ he added.