Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) and MobiCash Rwanda, an electronic payments solutions provider, have launched a new application that will see taxpayers remit taxes using MobiCash powered solution. 

The initiative is expected to ease tax collection and compliance, as well as boost revenues.

The partnership allows Mobicash, the single cashless mobile financial platform, to collect tax and non-tax fees on behalf of RRA.

Richard Tusabe, the RRA Commissioner General, said the application will increase efficiency in tax compliance and help reduce the cost of transaction.

"It also creates an interface between RRA and taxpayers that will increase tax compliance and collections at the same time,” Tusabe said while unveiling the application yesterday in Kigali.

Pascal Nyagahene, the MobiCash chief executive officer, said the platform eases the process and cost of doing business by removing the need for customers to go to a bank to effect an RRA payment.

He added that the application is in line with government’s efforts to promote a cashless economy in real time.

"This channel for paying taxes and other fees, including trading licence fees and birth certificates will provide unbeaten convenience and enhanced productivity in saving time, energy and money for businesses and individuals. We don’t want factors like time or distance to discourage customers from accessing a service,” Nyagahene said.

He explained that the platform enables taxpayers to have their payments cleared, processed and credited to the RRA account instantly. "We conducted a pilot phase from June this year to date and have collected over Rwf172 billion using 20 agents countrywide. We believe we can do more with the roll-out of more agents around the country to facilitate people to make their payments faster,” Nyagahene said.

RRA has been promoting e-tax payments systems, like EBMs, for the past few years to ease tax payment and make it convenient and user-friendly to enhance collections.

How it works

To access the service, tax payers first declare taxes using the RRA M-declaration process and then go to an agent who will generate a reference number indicating the type of tax one is making and proceed with subsequent steps. To pay for other RRA fees, go to the nearest MobiCash agent, specify the type of fees one is paying and proceed with subsequent steps.

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