Properties of people who own loans of 80 billion Rwf from the Govt to be confiscated

During a press conference that took place today, the Rwanda Revenue Authority officials have told media that the previsions regarding the collection of taxes/revenues will not be achieved as thoroughly as planned.

The proof is that until today, during the taxes collection year 2013/14, there are over 27 billion Rwf that are missing.

Due to this, the RRA launched a program to legally pursue all the people who have loans from the government and force them to pay so cover this gap.

According to the RRA, the previsions that it will collect over 581, 5 Billion Rwf will not materialize as until today the institution has only collected 95.3% of the total amount excepted.

In the preceding fiscal years, the RRA collected more money than expected.

The General Commissioner of the RRA, Richard Tusabe, told media that the current gap in the taxes and revenue collection was due to different causes which include a slow economic growth which have been planned to grow at 7.4 per cent but instead has grown to 4.6 per cent.

Another issue impacted upon the tax payment and collection is bad functioning of banks, a dis-functioning that resulted from the late payment of aids from development partners.

The imports rate has also declined, including the ones formerly paid for expensive cars, which caused the government to lose money normally paid in all transactions relating to importing expensive goods.

At the other hand, this year the Rwandan government has reduced the rate of tax payment to transport cars and of cars transporting construction tools.

In order to eradicate the roots of these causes, RRA has taken serious measures among which all the persons who own the loans from the government are in a compulsory obligation to pay them off before legal measures could be undertaken.

General Commissioner of the RRA, Richard Tusabe finds the task huge but says that all concerned people will pay the loan or their properties will be confiscated consequently.

The   RRA hopes that only 40 billion will be collected while the rest is likely not be gathered as some of the ones who took the loan have died.

The RRA hopes that after being able to manage all the tax collection system in the country will set up a tax collection system that will improve the tax management.

Another measure is to increase the tax normally paid by the telecommunication companies about the airtime cards. The increase will leave 8 per cent and reach 10 per cent.

This will be enabling to RRA to collect over 2 billion Rwf.

The RRA will evaluate whether the sellers own the EBM payment papers and if they don’t own them, they will face additional sanctions.

The RRA will also conduct national wide campaign to sensitize people about the importance of tax payment.

Tusabe said that all these measures combined will improve the tax collection and management for a long period of time.

Vénuste Kamanzi
UM– USEKE.RW