PRESENTER:
MR. TONATENI KATANGOLO
INSTITUTE:
MINISTRY OF FINANCE
Mr.
Katongolo discussed how Namibia lacks revenue creation due to ineffective
administration services. He pointed out the need to improve every state system for the country's functional capability and develop systems to
enhance the operation of administrative systems.
The Tax Administrative System is an online tax
collection system designed to improve taxpayer services, operational
efficiencies, and the effectiveness of tax administration to increase the
revenue of the country. The system offers online services that will be
accessible 24 hours a day and multi-channel access to engage in IRD services.
There is a call centre that can provide guidelines to citizens regarding taxes.
The system also provides instant email notifications when people get their
taxes. Access to generic information and the ability to generate a statement
for the taxpayer promote self-services such as updating user information,
registration of taxes, and generating transfer requests.
Increase
in Revenue Generation
The integrated tax administration system
increased the number of taxpayers and got taxes from the maximum number of
citizens. This resulted in the revenue of the state automatically increasing as
the majority of the people paid their taxes. He identified that the major
problem in the country is that most people are not aware of the tax system, and
that is why they still pay their taxes to the state. The 24-hour service and
administration system encouraged people and provided basic information to them
regarding their taxes. Moreover, the system automatically collected data and
evaluated their positions on whether they were eligible for tax payments and
claims or not.
Registry
Systems
Additionally, the registry system, along with the
tax administration system, collected and stored the data of all citizens and
also evaluated their income and property information. The major problem with
this system is that it is difficult to gather information from citizens. However,
the integration of the registry system will automatically collect, store, and
update the information whenever it is necessary.
Milestones from the system were identifiable in
phases: project initiation that defined requirements specifications; system
design that defined the architecture, data, and communication between modules;
System development that stated how the system should be operated; System
testing by creating scenarios and testing the actual system; System
Production/Implementation that did conference room piloting and recreating
business processes; and lastly, System Commissioning, where only 2% is left in
total commission.
Although there have been major milestones in the system, the number of registered online taxpayers is still low. The system will, however, be beneficial as there will be less human interaction and processes will be paperless (savings on cost). Finally, the challenges hindering full implementation are the resistance to change from taxpayers (which could curb issues of lost documents and existing cloud storage), the data migration system, and the user interface (policy and regulations).
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