Rwanda, Liberia join efforts to improve tax administration

Rwanda and Liberia on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to facilitate cooperation in improving tax administration. The MoU was signed between Rwanda Revenue Authority and Liberia Revenue Authority. During the signing ceremony, Richard Tusabe, the Commissioner General of RRA, said the MoU will guide both sides in various areas of cooperation notably exchange of information, tax law reforms, capacity building and monitoring dynamics in international taxation. “Rwanda and Liberia will be able to establish mechanisms through which we can share information on business that operates or come to both countries for the purpose of transit or destination for successful but legitimate business on investments done not only in the region but on the entire continent,” said Tusabe. A delegation from Liberia is in Rwanda to learn from their counterparts at RRA on how they can build a stronger tax administration to address some gaps facing their tax body. Tusabe said it will also be vital for them in the fight against tax fraud in international business operation. “Partnering with Liberia will enable us share experiences because we have similar challenges that we can sit, discuss and join hands to find sustainable solutions to increase tax revenues in the future,” he said. Rwanda’s tax to GDP performance has grown from 11.1 per cent in 1999 to 15.7 per cent in 2015/16. Tusabe said such tax performance is mainly influenced by prevailing economic indicators mainly real GDP performance. He said, “this explains why we are an ever reforming institution that prioritises the automation processes that have revolutionised our quality of service delivery and reduced tax outages.” Liberia Revenue Authority was started in 2014. The visiting delegation is looking forward to learning from Rwanda’s success story on its efficiency in tax revenue whose performance is on upward movement thanks to pro-business reforms and taking modern approaches to tax administration through improved service delivery. Elfrieda Stewart Tamba, the Commissioner General of Liberia Revenue Authority said they need to build a good relationship with the East African region like Uganda, Tanzania but chose this time to learn from Rwanda given the pace it has in doing business regulated by modern approaches of tax administration. “Rwanda has been cited as one of the African countries that perform well in doing business through a well –organised tax administration. We are looking to learn from the country’s successful tax payer’s education strategies and behaviour change about tax paying procedures,” she said. “We therefore, believe we shall benefit from RRA’s technical assistance and building shall work together to build the Africa we want to achieve the 2063 agenda where revenue authorities can efficiently contribute to developing the continent,” she added. The MoU is said to be about a long-term partnership between the two revenue bodies as they are looking to learn from each other in different angles of tax administration. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Rwanda, Liberia join efforts to improve tax administration