The Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) is right to employ punitive measures to compel people to pay tax. “No one wants to pay; so the best way is to have punitive mechanisms in place to ensure compliance,” Paul Frobisher Mugambwa, a tax manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers Rwanda (PwC), said.He, however, noted that this problem is a short-term one which needs culture change to overcome. He said when people understand that paying tax in time is an obligation for any citizen, it will be easy for them to pay taxes.Mugambwa was addressing reporters on the challenges RRA has faced on the e-filing and e-billing initiatives it adapted last year on Thursday.He urged the business community to embrace the electronic systems, saying they are more convenient. He lauded the tax body for extending the e-filing and e-billing deadline, arguing that it will help have everyone on board. “The discussions on how to make it user friendly will come later,” he added. RRA extended the e-filing and e-billing deadline from December 31, 2013 to March 31, 2014.Mugambwa, however, noted that having deadlines and punitive measures in place is sort of an incentive to ensure total compliance. The e-billing machines are meant to replace manual methods of filing by automatically calculating value added tax (VAT) owed by businesses to RRA, as well as controlling sales and stock by processing and storing invoices.Probably the size of a smart phone, an electronic billing machine comprises two components; a sales data controller, which records every transaction and a certified invoicing system, which provides invoices.Today, over 800 businesses out of 10,000 registered VAT payers are using them. Several entrepreneurs have expressed their fears of the machines being too expensive; failing to work when there is no electricity or the online methods being too tedious.RRA targets to collect Rwf795.7b this fiscal year compared to Rwf665.8b last financial year, mainly from creating efficiencies in tax correction.
