Monrovia-The Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA) has held a one-day tax dialogue with key actors within the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and public corporations.
The forum, which took place at the LRA Headquarters in Paynesville near Monrovia earlier this week, brought together comptrollers and staff of finance departments of SOEs and public corporations to discuss issues hindering withholding tax payment and to formulate requisite means of addressing them.
According to an LRA press release, the engagement highlighted payment of withholding tax obligations on wages and salaries, real property tax payment and the enrollment of SOEs into the electronic filing (e-filing) tax payment platform, among other things.
Liberia National Police, Central Bank of Liberia, National Elections Commission, Liberia Telecommunications Authority, National Social Security and Welfare Corporation, Liberia National Lottery, Liberia Petroleum Refining Company and the Liberia Bank for Development and Investment, among several others, attended the dialogue.
LRA Large Tax Division Manager for Analysis, Assessment and Accounting Eddie H. Howe described as important the role SOEs and public sector institutions in accelerating tax payment and compliance.
“With the cooperation of government institutions, the LRA will be able to collect more revenues,” he noted.
Mr. Howe encouraged participants of the tax dialogue to take the message of tax payment to their respective institutions as a way of promoting tax information sharing and compliance.
According Mr. Howe, the engagement is part of continuing efforts to educate and provide adequate tax awareness to finance officials of government owned entities with the aim to enhance tax compliance.
At the same time, comptrollers and staff of finance departments in attendance promised to ensure a full compliance of the Liberia Revenue Code during transactions with vendors.
The Liberia Revenue Code calls for state owned enterprises, and public and private sector institutions to ensure that vendors and contractors submit all legal documents including tax identification numbers and Tax Clearance Certificates before there are awarded service contracts.
It also indicates that the required tax s for services rendered or goods supplied by vendors or contractors are withheld and remitted to government’s revenue during payment for contracts and services awarded them by government and private institutions.
Speaking earlier, LRA Assistant Commissioner for Large Tax Andre P. Pope said the Authority remains committed to conducting more of such tax dialogues with government entities.
He pointed out that the holding of said meetings with public sector institutions is essential as it promotes a stronger partnership in boosting revenue collection to support the government’s Pro-Poor Agenda for Development and Prosperity.
He encouraged government’s institutions to also enroll into the LRA e-Filing platform in order to ease tax payment time and uphold compliance.