ADDIS ABABA–Lack of knowhow and willingness of the society about taxation is at a very low level and needs to be improved in order to attain far-reaching and sustainable economic growth, experts in the field stressed.
Addressing the Second High Level Conference entitled Challenges and Solutions of Taxation for Investment and Nation Building, Afro-Global Consultancy Service (AGS) President Professor Dr. FissehaTsion Mengistu indicated that lack of abundant expertise on taxation system and corruption has resulted to poor tax performance.
Dr. Fisseha-Tsion noted that it is important to have a clear objective to succeed in tax collection. There is no development and civilization without effective taxation system, He said adding that among the problems that posed challenge to effective taxation system in Ethiopia is lack of working together in cooperation among tax paying community and the higher level government officials.
Taxation is one of the best instruments to boost the economic performance of the country and a means for revenue generation. Since the primary income of the government depends on tax and if the tax paying community lacks knowhow about tax it is difficult for the government and for the public as well to push economic performance of the country forward.
According to Professor FissehaTsion, in order to overcome the problem facing the tax paying community and the tax system government needs to work more on public. Encourage and mobilize the public to pay tax appropriately and timely. The government officials must also be accountable and responsible, he reiterated. According to him the country has very little number of experts in taxation as compared to its vast population. There are many complex problems that face taxation system in Ethiopia.
There is also a misunderstanding among the public and government which has to be openly discussed, there is no way to hide the problems since the problem is so visible. Mulay Weldu, Director of Tax Policy at Ministry of Finance (MoF) for his part said that, the public needs to cooperate more with the government. The responsibility is not only in the side of the tax paying community but also the government officials need to discharge their responsibility. There should be strong partnership among the public and government.
We need to have a strong administrative and executive organ to improve it. Of course the government is taking a good initiative now and the reason why we organize this conference is to support the already started government initiatives. There are complex problems that require serious and continuous research, discussion and dialogue among experts, he noted. The Second High Level Conference was organized by Afro Global Consultancy service in collaboration with pertinent government agencies and the academia, among others.
Herald January 26/2019
BY HAILE DEMEKE
