MoR’s tax transformation to hinge on demand

Ministry of Revenue (MoR) announces that under the transformation of tax administration it has targeted to execute demand driven technology usage than the experience of supply driven.
The government had tabled that by 2030 the public expenditure will be covered by tax generation.
To attain the stated goal, the government is undertaking modernizing the tax administration that includes the change on technology use.
Zemede Teferra, State Minister of MoR, told Capital that to improve the technology MoR has designed an IT strategy at the inception to know the way on how to go.
“Through the IT strategy we have conducted business process to redefine the whole process and now we identified the core functions that will be finalized very soon,” he said.
The business process function may have structure, law revision, and implantation process, and of course technology that shall look to improve or automate the current technology that MoR is using, SIG Tax Database, which is considered as outdated technology that MoR has been using for over a decade.
“Overall, technology change will happen but to know for which one will be in use shall be answered by the business process functional requirements that is currently being undertaken,” Zemede, who directly leads the process, elaborated.
Zemede said that the IT strategy has been designed. “Following the business process, reengineering is expected to finalize in the coming Ethiopian New Year followed by automation which will have better work with regards to business functional requirement, specification and others.”
“After the definition of business process functional requirement that leads to know the technology specification is what we need,” he explained.
In the past, mostly technology implementation was driven by technology suppliers’ which was described as a challenge. “But on the IT strategy, we have identified that it is supposed to be demand driven by the tax authority. It enables us to know what we need and what we have to know on the given technology implementation process and the possible improvements and changes in the future,” the State Minister explained.
The process was part of the tax transformation starting in 2018/19 budget year. After the development of the business process the final decision will be given by the government.
The government’s ten year prosperity plans projected that the tax revenue would be expanded to 3.5 trillion birr with 18.2 GDP share by 2020, while over all government revenue is also expected to reach at 3.9 trillion birr.