Mozambique’s Tax Authority (AT) expects the country to have two million registered taxpayers by the end of this year, up from 1,789,000 in 2011. This represents about 17 per cent of the workforce.According to the chair of the Tax Authority, Rosario Fernandes, “our plan, as agreed by the Assembly of the Republic, is to raise 95.5 billion meticais (about 3.4 billion US dollars). That is an 18 per cent increase compared to last year when tax revenues raised 81.1 million meticais (2.9 billion dollars)”.
Fernandes stated that in 2011 the Tax Authority managed a tax ratio (the ratio of tax collection compared to the national gross domestic product) of 21.8 per cent, which he stated was the highest since the country’s independence in 1975.However, this tax ratio is still below the level of convergence of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which is set at 25 per cent.Raising more revenue from taxation is of growing importance because Mozambique’s dependence on foreign aid has been declining in recent years.According to the state budget for 2012, only 39.6 per cent of public expenditure will be covered by foreign grants and loans, with 60.4 per cent of the budget met by domestic resources. In last year’s budget 44.6 per cent of expenditure was to be covered by foreign aid, while in the 2010 budget the figure was 51.4 per cent.The downward trend is expected to continue, in part due to the current financial crisis faced by most donor countries.
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