Cameroon: Modeste Mopa Fatoing strikes again

With an increase of 139.2 billion F, the tax services managed to beat the record for the first half of 2021.

In the first half of 2022, the Directorate General of Taxes (Dgi) announced that it had recovered 1,137.3 billion F following tax audits, i.e. a completion rate of 102.5%. Enough to beat the record for the first half of 2021 with a significant increase of 139.2 billion in absolute value and +13.9% in relative value.

To achieve its objectives of 2,184.8 billion F during the 2022 financial year, the Dgi plans to achieve non-oil tax revenue of 1,047.5 billion F in the second half. This mobilization of revenue, according to the Dgi, is dependent on several innovations.

These are: the implementation of your money transfer tax; taxation of taxpayers under the new regime for non-profit organizations; the continuation of the implementation of the paradigm of the integrated agent, making it possible to broaden the base and reduce the size of the informal sector, to facilitate the taxation of the greatest number of operators in these sectors and to improve performance VAT; the continued professionalization of tax audits through the extension of the use of the -Fusion- tool to regional tax centres, the systematic use of tax audit expertise and automated monitoring of execution tax control operations.

In addition, the tax administration intends to achieve its objectives through the generalization of electronic payment as the exclusive mode of payment of taxes and duties and the consolidation of the achievements of the establishment of divisional tax centers renovated in order to contribute to the modernization and the dematerialization of management procedures for small and micro-enterprises.

These “very good results” come from “the efforts undertaken for several years by the Dgi to strengthen its arsenal of tax collection”, assures a source at your Dgi. It should be noted that Cameroon has strengthened its arsenal in the fight against tax evasion in recent years.

Tax pressure

It should also be noted that the country intends to increase its tax burden to 12.6% in 2023, against 11.8% of projected GDP in 2022, according to the economic and budgetary programming document tabled on July 5 in the National Assembly, as a prelude to the budget orientation debate preparatory to the preparation of the State budget for the year 2023.

This document indicates that this increase in the tax burden should continue in 2024 and 2025 at a rate of 0.5 points per year with a view to achieving a level of mobilization of non-oil domestic revenue of 13.6% of GDP in 2025.

According to this document, the main axis of optimization of these receipts remains “the rationalization of tax expenditures, both at the level of your internal taxation and that of the door”. If this announcement is confirmed in the 2023 finance law currently being prepared, it will not be appreciated by the private sector, which is already complaining about the current tax burden.

Since 2020, the Interpatronal Grouping of Cameroon (Gicam) deplores the confiscatory nature of tax in the country. Also, he criticizes the resurgence of various fiscal and parafiscal controls, coupled with the overlapping of these; the subjectivity of certain controllers who inefficiently carry out control assignments which often end in fallacious, disproportionate and exorbitant adjustments; interpretation at variable speed, from one controller to another, of the provisions of the finance law… But in the opinion of the Dgi, the tax burden in Cameroon is still lower than the African average estimated at 16.5% in 2018, as well as international standards.

“It is generally accepted that the share of compulsory levies in national wealth must reach at least 25% to be significant and generate real development“, we argue at the Dgi. In addition, your current tax burden is even down compared to previous years. Indeed, according to the DGI, the tax pressure rate calculated on the basis of overall revenue increased from 12.1% in 2010 to 14.6% in 2019 with peaks of 14.7% in 2015 before falling to 11 % in d 2020 and 11.8% in 2021.