Taxpayers in eight Ethiopian cities have been granted a three-month deadline to integrate QR (quick response) codes into their receipts. This initiative is part of a broader digitization effort aimed at enhancing authentication and supporting revenue collection goals.

The country’s Ministry of Revenues issued a letter notifying branch offices of an amendment to the tax receipt issuance and administration directive that has been in effect for the past five years.

All receipts issued by businesses and individual service providers must include a QR code of at least 2cm on each side, printed using ‘Inkjet’ ink. Printing presses with access to the QR code portal provided by the Ministry of Revenues are required to comply with applicable data privacy and protection laws.

Additionally, taxpayers must obtain approval from the Ministry before ordering QR-marked receipts from printing enterprises.

Tax officials will not accept invoices that do not include this code, according to the directive inked by Aynalem Nigusie, the Minister of Revenue.

The move, which echoes a proposal in Kenya to designate all digital payment systems as virtual electronic tax receipts (ETR) systems, comes amid concerns that the country is under-performing its tax revenue potential.

TAXATION | #Kenya to Designate All Digital Payment TouchPoints as Virtual Tax Receipts Increasing Tax Payers by Over 10x

Combined, all Kenyan telcos and the banks who are doing mobile money have over two million of them, 10x the ETRs at KRA.https://t.co/4I0FvIcaCO @KRACare pic.twitter.com/JNMnT4gtai

— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) October 11, 2024

Ethiopia has made significant strides in tax collection over the past two decades, with revenues increasing from 12.4 billion Birr ($102 million) in 2005 to 165.3 billion Birr ($1.3 billion) in 2015, surpassing half a trillion Birr (~4$ billion) by the end of the 2023/24 fiscal year.

Despite this growth, the country’s economic output has outpaced its tax revenue. The tax-to-GDP ratio, which stood at 13.4 percent in 2015, declined to seven percent by the end of the last fiscal year.

Tax officials have attributed the stagnant revenue figures to several factors, including:

  • The absence of essential policies

  • Administrative inefficiencies

  • Slow adoption of technology, and

  • The rise of contraband trade

The issue was highlighted during the Prime Minister’s recent address to Parliament where he linked poor tax collection to the widespread informal economy.

 

“We do not collect taxes,” the Prime Minister remarked.

 

 

 

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