TRA improves system to curb receipt forgery

TANZANIA Revenue Authority (TRA) has updated its Electronic Fiscal Device Management System to reduce the possibility of forgery of receipts from Electronic Fiscal Devices (EFDs).

The system which links the EFDs directly to the central servers in TRA has increased the management of information system for compliance. TRA Acting Commissioner, Ms Neema Mrema, said the Electronic Fiscal Device Management System (EFDMS) has the security conditions in which for all transactions receipts will have an electronic signature and QR code.

“EFDMS also enhances transparency for the cessation of all receipts being reviewed, also the system is capable of identifying if the service was provided or not and give feedback when necessary,” Ms Mrema said during a one day tax seminar to officials from government departments and institutions.

The seminar brought together large taxpayers in Dar es Salaam to make them familiar with the Value Added Tax (VAT) Act 2014 and its regulations, Finance Act 2016, virtual EFD and withholding tax in some of the services.

Ms Mrema further said unfortunately, phase two of EFDs faced a number of challenges including taxpayers’ resistance to fully utilise the machines, pricing and after sales support services. She added that as a result of the above challenges, the implementation of EFD phase II has not yielded expected results yet.

Expounding further, she said EFDs are therefore a proper record keeping tool for taxpayers and a very potent compliance management tool for TRA. On implementation of the revised withholding tax 2013, she said government officials in different department were facing various challenges. She mentioned some of these challenges as lack of sufficient awareness on taxation.

She said TRA was also aware of the existence of confusion in the imposition of a withholding tax of 2 per cent on the supply of goods to government departments and institutions of the central government budget based on 100 per cent with the imposition of withholding tax of 5 per cent in services.

Senior Accountant officer for Tanzania Sugar Board, Ms Devotha Sanga, said among the challenges they face regarding withholding tax was the rate applicable, as they do not know how much to deduct from an individual and companies as the rate has been changing frequently.