IPNews-Monrovia,Liberia-29 August 2018: A three day Taxpayers Service Training for revenue authorities in West Africa opened in Monrovia Tuesday morning.
About 35 participants from tax administrations across West African countries including Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Gambia among others are participating in the ongoing training.
The event organized by the West African Tax Administration (WATAF) in collaboration with the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA), serving as host, seeks to augment the skills of taxpayer service attendants in ensuring effective customers relations.
The training which is under the theme: “Enhancing Voluntary Tax Compliance Through Effective Taxpayer Service”, is discussing ways to formulate strategies for the development and implementation of effective taxpayer services.
Speaking at the opening of the training, WATAF Executive Secretary Babatunde Oladape stressed the need for the enhancement of service delivery at tax administrations across the region.
Mr. Oladape said the promotion of taxpayer education is key to achieving voluntary compliance.
The WATAF Executive pointed out that tax administrations need to enhance their strategies through making procedures and processes easy for taxpayers to fulfill their tax obligations with lessened cost of compliance.
“For you to get taxpayers to fulfill their civic obligations, you need to provide service. Morally it is compulsory that you treat them right,” he asserted.
The WATAF executive urged participants to acquire the relevant skills being taught at the training with the aim to help transform the component of service delivery which enhances the operation of tax administrations.
“We are here because of the passion we have to develop our respective countries; the training is all about helping us to improve service delivery. So please open up your mind, learn and share experiences as it promotes peer education which we highly encourage at WATAF,” Mr. Oladape told the participants.”
LRA Acting Commissioner General Decontee T. King-Sackie noted that the training will help strengthen the role of tax administrations in the West African region in promoting domestic resource mobilization efforts.
She said the provision of adequate taxpayer services which includes the providing up-to-date information and education is crucial to facilitating voluntary compliance and at the same time provides taxpayers the timely assistance needed to enable them meet their tax obligations to the government.
“This effort will be a continuous one, because we believe we need to enhance our combined revenue performance through the improvement and increase voluntary compliance,” she said.
Acting CG King-Sackie said through a more modern and aggressive taxpayer service, voluntary compliance can be definitely achieved.
She indicated that the basic objectives of taxpayer service is gear toward impacting knowledge as a guide to tax law and compliance, including changing taxpayers’ attitudes toward taxation and increasing tax collection via increasing voluntary compliance.
She spoke of the need for all of countries in the region to aim at formulating strategies and initiatives to improve taxpayer services at the various tax administrations.
Madam King-Sackie than thanked WATAF and PcW for initiating the training and choosing Liberia as its venue.
