About 2000 clients have been cleared this month for VAT and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) duties that have been levied against them. Flavia Busingye, the Rwanda Revenue Auhority (RRA) publicist said the figure is slightly less than last month’s number.

Busingye said that the clearance exercise forced
RRA staff members, to extend their work schedule to late hours, on Thursday this week.

The extension to late hours was to serve the many tax payers who turned up to clear VAT and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) at RRA banking halls in Kigali City.

The business communities rushed to clear taxes fearing to pay fines. The deadline for payment was the 15th day of the month.

According to RRA rates, small tax payers are charged Frw100,000, medium ones Frw300,000 while large payers folk out Frw500,000 when they fail to clear on time.

When asked why they want to always pay on the last day, some tax payers said that its partly because they usually do not have the money.

"RRA demands that we pay amounts above Frw500,000 by cheque and normally at the beginning of that month, my employer is out of the country on business deals. He can only authorise cheques around this time of the month when he is back,” Bosco Kanamugire said.

Busingye attributes the improving timely clearance to the sensitisation campaign RRA  carries out on radios, telephones, television and seminars.

"Nkusi Mukubu, the Director Taxpayers  services sent most tax payer SMS messages asking them to pay in time,” she said.

Ends