Director of Finance at the National Revenue Authority Ibrahim Kormoh informed the 2021 Budget process that NRA has set a target of 6.507 Trillion Leones.
Kormoh made this statement while presenting their annual budget to the ministry of Finance, NOTING that their target for 2020 was Le 5.399 trillion.
He pointed out that they would have to refurbish the WAMA house at Ecowas Street where some of their staff will have to occupy.
That the buildings they are occupying now need some renovation and that they need to rent land at the border posts.
According to him, NRA is the only institution that is collecting money on behalf of government but they don’t have a revenue house.
He revealed that with the help of the Ministry of Finance, they would have to buy revenue house because they are paying huge amount on rent.
He explained that that NRA collects 100% of revenue for government-97% goes to government while 3% goes to NRA.
He highlighted areas they want to strengthen- Governance, Incentive and Motivation, Revenue Mobilization and Tax Information, Information and Communications Technology and a Strong Audit Practice.
Director of Monitoring Research and Planning Dr. Philip Kargbo highlighted revenue enhancing activities proposed for 2021 as they want to expand the tax base through block registration identifying HNWIs, data analysis of Freetown City Council property data and implementation of tourism registration strategy, closing leakages and reducing tax evasion and avoidance through TP legislation and audit capacity.
That review of fiscal regimes in existing agreements and legislation, a duty and tax exemption policy to create a consistent policy frame work for fairness and ensuring minimal revenue loss, building capacity in data analytics involving setting up a centralized data analytics project setting up data warehouse and training NRA staff to be able to extract transform and store data in a centralized repository and secure data analytics software for the team to analyse date that will inform compliance tracking; audits, policy reforms and research development and implementation of measures targeting the under declaration and smuggling at customs are some of the reforms they are undertaking.
