HMRC Advises Counterparts In Ethiopia And Tanzania

By Amanda Banks, Tax-News.com, London

09 May 2013

Tax experts at HM Revenue and Customs are to provide counterparts in Tanzania and Ethiopia with advice and assistance on how to improve tax administration.

Following a "health check" to assess the amount of revenue collected, the structure of the two countries' tax authorities, and current tax legislation, it is anticipated that HMRC will provide help in areas such as tax inspector training, website design, complaints handling, and creating a risk management system.

The programmes will be undertaken through the UK Government's new Developing Countries Capacity Building Unit, which is funded by The Department for International Development (DFID) and run by HMRC. According to an HM Treasury statement, the project will "tailor HMRC best practice to the infrastructure and resources available to help these countries."

Prime Minister David Cameron has described capacity-building as a key priority ahead of the G8 summit, which the UK will chair in June, and in a speech at Davos in January he announced that UK involvement in tax collection in Ethiopia had led to a seven-fold increase in tax collection there over the last decade. The work of the new unit in Ethiopia will represent a "second phase" of cooperation with HMRC.

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