Work smartly

I WANT to further contribute on the article ‘Tax office needs strengthening’ by Paul Barker, the Director of Institute of National Affairs in The National’s business column on Thursday.
I could not agree more with Barker’s suggestions on the areas IRC needs to improve.
However, let me point out that the critical revenue collection agency is in dire need of officer’s capability build-up in all divisions.
He correctly stressed the weaknesses in data and revenue managed by IRC, automating the work processes and the self-assessment system.
He suggested concentration of resources to oversights and tax audits.
Incongruent to other government agencies, the IRC over the years always received adequate funding for its compliance activities, training of officers and in the most recent years the state of the art Standard Integrated Government Tax Administration System (SIGTAS) programme modernising all IRC work practices.
I guess the total cost of Sigtas could be K1bil.
The IRC does not need to work very hard but work smartly by building officers’ capabilities that had been grossly incapacitated by the exit of some very experienced and highly skilled auditors.
The problems in IRC will continue unless the skilling level of officers in IRC are resolved.

TAUA, Tax Oberver