Judiciary devoted to clear tax appeal cases shortly

FAUSTINE KAPAMA

The Court of Appeal Registrar, Mr John Kahyoza.

THE Judiciary has expressed its commitment to ensure tax appeal cases worth 6.9trillion/-, as noted by Controller and Auditor General (CAG), are disposed of timely without any due delay, the Court of Appeal Registrar, Mr John Kahyoza, has said.

He told the ‘Daily News’ over the weekend that about 26 tax appeal cases, whose value could not be disclosed, have already been determined and several others would be cause listed for hearing in the next court session starting May 19, this year.

“We are giving these cases with the most priority they deserve for national interest. The cases will be placed in the course list for hearing in each session wherever they are filed in our registry. So, we are committed to ensure such cases are determined the soonest as practicable,” he said.

However, Mr Kahyoza expressed his doubts on whether really the pending cases fetch 6.9trillion/-.

A similar concern is raised by an impeccable source from the Tax Revenue Appeals Board. It is alleged that the amount of cases handed so far since the establishment of the Board has not even reached 2 trillion/-.

“We do not know how the CAG reached into such figures. I think he has been misled by his assistants because we never saw any officers from his office coming to us to get any data relating to the cases,” the unimpeachable source who preferred anonymity said.

In his report presented before the National Assembly recently, the CAG, Professor Mussa Assad, discovered long standing tax objection cases, which have denied the government revenue amounting to 6.9 trillion/-.

Such cases, he stated, were pending before different Tax Appeals Machineries. Such machineries include the Tax Revenue Appeals Board, Tax Revenue Appeals Board and the Court of Appeal.

The CAG pointed out that such amount was an increase of 5.2tri/-, which is equivalent to 75 per cent as compared to 1.7tri/- worth of cases unveiled in the 2013/2014 fiscal year.

“This is attributed to lack of funds and tax experts before the Tax Appeals Board, Tribunal and Court of Appeal and laxity of finding timely resolution of the received cases by the registrar, indicating inefficiency of the revenue appeals system,” Prof Assad said in his report.

He revealed in his summary of audit reports for the 2014/2015 financial year ending June, last year that application for tax objections amounting to 580,718,607,384 /- were not attended to and resolved by the Commissioner General (CG) of the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) as of June 30, last year.

Prof Assad recommended that the government should expedite the hearings of tax appeals at various stages of appealing machineries to enable timely collection of government revenue.

He also called on the government to declare amnesty of interests and penalties on voluntary disclosure of tax liability and offer instalment payment of tax liabilities enabling taxpayers to clear their principal sums of all outstanding taxes in arrears.

In the 2013/2014 financial year, the CAG unveiled several short-comings which are denying the government some revenue, including unresolved tax appeals cases worth over 1.7tri/-, pending before Tax Machineries.

Prof Assad pointed out that 261.19bn/- worth of the cases were stuck at the Tax Revenue Appeals Tribunal for a long time, while the remaining amount of 1,455.04bn/- were waiting decisions of the Tax Revenue Appeal Board.

The CAG, therefore, proposed for fast disposal of the cases in question and that the TRA management should double its efforts to improve the inspection and investigation process to reduce complaints between the Authority and taxpayers.