Mobile phone operators in Tanzania are among large taxpayers that have come under the spotlight as the Tanzania Revenue Authority moves to plug loopholes in the regulations in order to reduce the room for “tax planning.”
Tax planning, or tax avoidance, is the term for manoeuvres to minimise tax liability that are legal under the Income Tax Act of 2004, whereby a firm deducts capital allowance from gross profit with the aim of attaining a taxable net profit, which is legally accepted.
But a taxpayer may well arrange for the figures in the net profit docket to appear as a net loss, thus paying minimal or no tax at all.
Now the TRA says it wants to embark on an exercise to determine whether large taxpayers in Tanzania, including mobile telephones companies, are planning tax to minimise their liability.
The official list of large taxpayers now amounts to 370 companies.
Placidus Luoga, Deputy Commissioner General of TRA, told The EastAfrican in an interview last week that while mobile firms in Tanzania have actually been paying taxes above the taxman’s target, the TRA nevertheless wishes to check on the possible existence of tax planning.
Between July 2007 and June this year, mobile phone firms in the large taxpayers’ category — among them Vodacom Tanzania, Tigo, Zain and Zantel — had paid excise duty to the government amounting to Tsh40.2 billion ($36.2 million) whereas the TRA target was to collect Tsh39.2 billion ($37.3 million), a performance of 102 per cent.
The deputy commissioner said value added tax (VAT) for all telecommunication forms, including the fixed line ones, had amounted to Tsh105.5 billion ($100 million), against the targeted Tsh81.8 billion ($77.9 million), a performance of 129 per cent.
“But as there is a problem with the income tax law, which provides for an avenue to minimise tax to be paid,” he said, “TRA without discrimination or malice, under the law, is moving to check how the taxpayers have reached the figures of tax to be paid.”
However, he said, since tax avoidance is legal, TRA is currently studying a prudent mechanism that would compel its taxpayers into paying a fair tax amount. “What is illegal is tax evasion, which we are increasing our capacity to fight,” he added.
However, analysts say that even with such a move, to get the best from taxpayers, it is the end user who gets to pay the most due to contradictory tax structures.
They point out that Tanzania has the highest rate of tax in East Africa when it comes to mobile phone services.
East African Standard
