By: Rancy S. Teewia
The commissioner-General of the Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA), Thomas Doe Nah says the Liberia Revenue Authority will be aggressive on those refusing to pay their taxes. Mr. Nah said this is because citizens should be able to pay their taxes if Liberia is to be developed.
He made the statement on Thursday, October 17, 2019 during his presentation at a regular press briefing of the Ministry of Information Culture Affairs and Tourism (MICAT) in Monrovia.
Commissioner Doe Nah said LRA has engaged the World Bank to help Liberia to provide integrated system and that the WB has agreed to help the Liberia Revenue Authority to digitize the system in order to avoid burden on the citizens during tax payment.
He also said the LRA has decentralizes the process into 17 groups in the 17 Districts in Montserrado county, and noted that its employees will be assigned in each of those groups.
At the same time, commissioner Nah said LRA will begin by auditing all of the GSM and other companies operating in the country to determine whether they are operating legally according to the revenue law or not.
“They are planning to establish a tax academy to train some Liberians in order to have the capacity to audit those companies,” he said, noting, “Auditing a company is a huge task and critical, so it needs experts. He indicated that this is why the LRA is planning to establish an academy to train some Liberians to be able to the work professionally.”
He further stressed that the Liberia Revenue Authority will fight tax evasion and smuggling and flour imported by fraud, urging all public officials to stop interfering when they are going after smugglers and fraudsters. “We are calling on all public officials to stop interfering when we are going after smugglers and fraudsters,” Commissioner Doe Nah stressed.
The LRA Boss also denied the allegation that the Liberia Revenue authority is giving duty free privileges to government officials.
Meanwhile the LRA Commissioner General warned all LRA employees who are on the field collecting taxes to be tolerant when dealing with taxpayers. “I want to use this platform to warn all the employees that are on the field to be tolerant to our taxpayers; and I want to call on all taxpayers to report any LRA personnel who behaved disorderly to them to the LRA office.
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