The Namibia Revenue Agency (NamRA) says it has uncovered suspicious transactions worth more than N$100 million that were sent outside of Namibia, primarily to South Africa, and then on to Asia and Europe.
The national tax collector Commissioner Sam Shivute said the transactions were done by tax evading businesses using ghost companies.
In most cases, he said the accounts are registered in unsuspecting vulnerable individuals’ names, who provided documentation under the disguise of being provided some form of regular assistance.
“We are challenged by non-compliance, an issue that we are aggressively addressing as we work towards capacitating our workforce,” Shivute said.
“In relation to the issue of ghost companies, these are companies that submit nil returns, but yet there are frequent transactions. Many times, you see money transferred into the account, but only lasts for 72 hours, then transferred outside the country, mostly South Africa.
“That is a lot of revenue that we are losing at the hands of individuals and multi-national businesses who are evading tax. However, their days are numbered and will soon catch up from the long arm of the law. We know them, it’s only a matter of time, thus those who know their wrongdoing are encouraged to do the right thing, as they have nowhere to hide.”
Shivute said this while giving an overview of some of the issues that NamRA is experiencing as it strives to be a world-class revenue agency.
He said the Agency is working on a robust compliance strategy aimed at using a segmented audit function system that has focused staff on different sectors.
“We will be capacitating our staff so that each is skilled and able to understand the various sectors from fishing, mining, tourism, and finance, among many others, so that each area can contribute fairly. For instance, the fishing industry is not giving as supposed, therefore, and we have our eyes on them, as we work towards empowering our workforce. In the long run, no sector will be left behind, we shall scrutinise and make sure we collect what is due,” the Commissioner said.
In addition, he said NamRA will also narrow down on the banking sector to understand how transactions and multinational management sitting fees are being transacted to seal loopholes of evading taxes.
Furthermore, he admitted that a lot of work still lies ahead in investing and developing a highly professional human resource, as well as integrating systems.
“To be the best at what they do, you would want a situation whereby each and every employee would be a world-class professional, and must be able to provide excellent and world-class service. And for the time being, we are not there. But I’m very happy to report that we are working with developmental partners to ensure that our workforce is well-equipped,” he said.
“The other thing we would like to re-engineer is our processes with regard to registration, filing, payment and reporting, which should be integrated. So one of the challenges is to ensure that the reengineered processes are effectively implemented, the bottleneck and inefficiency experienced in a tax administration or NamRA need to be addressed. Because we still see people waiting long to get their refunds and in long queues, while others are unable to use ITAS or ASYCUDA, thus the aim is to do away with that if we aspire to deliver top-notch service.”
While at it, Shivute said NamRA will not be bullied into doing favours, nor will it be controlled by individuals on what and who to investigate on tax compliance.
Rather, he said the message of compliance has been consistent as the Agency moves to enforce the tax law without fear or favor; “and we will do our work without being dictated by anybody, but we shall do it in accordance with what the law says and the principle of taxation including the strategy we developed. But some individuals are pushing us to do this, audit that, collect from that.”
