RRA has urged concerned taxpayers to file and pay the 2022 income tax quarterly prepayment without waiting for the last minute. This payment will be for the 1st Quarter and will consider sales/ turnovers for the months of January, February and March 2022.

Early last month, Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) issued an announcement reminding taxpayers that filing and payment of the first income tax quarterly prepayment is done in a three-month period from April to June, with the deadline being on June 30, 2022.

According to RRA, the reminder is a wake up call for taxpayers who tend to wait for the last minute to file, thus falling prey to unnecessary mistakes due to delays, yet they would be given needed support by RRA staff if declaration is done early enough.

Rwanda Revenue Authority staff on duties at head office at Kimihurura. File

This first income tax quarterly prepayment filing and payment concerns all taxpayers who made a profit in the previous fiscal year 2021 and had therefore declared such in March 2022. Taxpayers who made a nil declaration, and those who declared a loss for 2021 income tax, as well as those who opened their business in 2022 are not concerned with this particular quarter’s filing and payment.

According to Ms Hajara Batamuliza, the Commissioner for Domestic Taxes "The computation of this tax shall be based on the quarterly sales/turnover realized in January, February and March 2022.”

"This was one of the Government of Rwanda’s strategies to help businesses cope with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic since 2020. Prior to that, the way of computing income quarterly pre-payment (IQP) was done based on the previous fiscal year’s annual income tax” she continued.

According to 2021 Tax statistics released by RRA, in Rwanda there are three categories of taxpayers registered under income tax; about 375 are large taxpayers, 840 are medium taxpayers while more than 230, 000 fall under the category of small taxpayers.

To date, income tax contributes about 20% of revenue collection compared to all taxes collected by the Tax Administration.