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More Rwandans paying their taxes using MobiCash
Ever since the start of its partnership with Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) to collect both fiscal and non-fiscal revenues of its behalf in May last year, MobiCash has provided significant convenience to taxpayers.
Given the platform’s telephone and bank agnostic nature, many people have been able to make their RRA payments much more conveniently than it was being done before.
Pascal Nyagahene, the MobiCash Rwanda chief executive officer, says the firm works with over 400 agents and sector credit and savings co-operatives (Umurenge SACCOs), which has brought RRA services to the grassroots taxpayers countrywide.
“To date, close to Rwf800 million has been collected by RRA using the MobiCash platform,” he said.
How people made RRA payments before MobiCash and RRA’s partnership
Venuste Ufitinema from Rulindo District in Northern Province, says he used to travel a long distance to access Internet services to file his quarterly local tax returns, and get a reference number that he would use to pay the taxes in the bank.
“On days when I was filing my tax returns, I always suspended farming activities,” he says.
Ufitinema pays district property tax for a plot of land. He says now he is able to file tax returns, get a reference number from the system and pays the tax without having to go to the bank, thanks to MobiCash platform used by the local Umurenge SACCOs.
“Now the whole process takes about one hour at the Izuba SACCO to process my reference number and pay the tax using MobiCash,” he says.
Ufitinema adds that this has helped him save time and transport money to concentrate on his farming. “I don’t have to go out of the sector to pay the tax as was the case before,” he says.
Sam Nsengimana, an accountant at Ijabo SACCO in Kicukiro District, says it enables people pay local taxes and other RRA fees with ease, adding that the facility has promoted payment of taxes, and enabled SACCOs to earn extra cash as MobiCash agents.
“Using e–payment platforms has eased tax collection…We have taken advantage of this to reach more people, especially the financially excluded in the villages,” he says.
Indeed, as more Rwandans become aware of MobiCash, RRA together with more Rwandans will be saving more of the most important assets, time and money to build a better economy.
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