ATAF VAT TECHNICAL COMMITTEE Frankie Mbuyamba 1 BACKGROUND

ATAF - VAT TECHNICAL COMMITTEE Frankie Mbuyamba 1

BACKGROUND AND EXPECTED OUTCOMES q ATAF established since May 2017 an Expert Committee on VAT for Africa. q The following tax authorities made up the VAT Committee: BURS, GRA, KRA, MRA (Malawi), MRA (Mauritius), OBR, RRA, SARS and ZIMRA. q Place of VAT in the African Tax Mix – VAT has the highest share in total collections. § The need to modernise tax administration for better revenue collection. § The impact of international development on African tax administration (digitisation, E-Systems in use in Africa, VAT fraud…) § Various topics of interest were proposed but the most important to be developed are: VAT compliance in the construction industry and VAT and the e-commerce. § Workplan of the committee for every twelve months include the development of guidelines or/and reports. © 2017 - African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), All rights reserved. 2

Meetings and workplan activities § 3 Meetings have been organised sinception of the VAT technical committee § Wide questionnaire for the ATAF members: to ascertain how countries are applying VAT in the construction industry (e. g. audits/risk/etc. ) § Upon receipt of the outcomes of the questionnaire, a consolidated report will be produce as a guidance document § Development of e-commerce on the other hand: specially on VAT of online sales Ø Plan to host e-commerce seminar; draft guidelines © 2017 - African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF), All rights reserved. 3

Challenges o Limited responses received from administrations for completion of questionnaires; o Lack of clarity on the contributions to be made by individual members of the VAT technical Committee; o Lack of clarity on the objective of the assignment; o Insufficient communication by the committee on deliverables; o Insufficient time allocation of members of the committee to the work of the VAT technical committee. In order to rectify the above deficiencies, the Committee agreed to: v Re-commit, under the leadership of the Chair, to meet the objectives and timelines associated with the delivery of the report on the construction industry; v Clearly state the objective of the questionnaire (completed on 21/10/2018); v Refine the questionnaire to improve the quality of responses and also, to make it easier for countries to complete the forms 4

Resolutions q The Chair and individual members committed to adhering to the workplan to ensure a finalized product on the construction industry is concluded in 2018. q The Chair and individual members resolved to provide a written summary of in-country developments (which are attached as Annexure A to this report). q The Committee’s work on e-commerce will commence in 2019 after completion of the construction industry guidelines. 5