Online tax declaration attracts more small businesses

The online tax declaration introduced recently by the Directorate General of Taxation, DGT, is attracting more and more small and medium enterprises.

This was demonstrated by the massive attendance of the business operators at February 3, 2016, edition of the information and training day on electronic filing of taxes organised by the Directorate General of Taxation in Yaounde.

Yannick Essomba and Yondja Njike, both of the Directorate General of Taxation, drilled the participants through the seven steps on how to subscribe a tax return online.

According to Essomba and Njike, business proprietors must have a valid taxpayer’s card as the business registration number on it is one of the requirements to proceed with online tax declaration.

Then the taxpayer can connect to www.impots.cm and go to the electronic filing section or on the site teledeclaration-dgi.cm. From there, the taxpayer creates an account and follows the remaining steps to where he or she downloads and prints the summary of the declaration.

The trainers noted that the scheme, which took effect from this year, is aimed at easing online tax declaration and payment.

“Before now, in order to ensure this obligation, taxpayers were required to be physically present at their respective competent tax office.

“But now with E-filing, taxpayers can electronically subscribe their monthly or annual tax statements in real time. They may now make an online filing of their taxes from the website of the DGT,” an information sheet explains.

According to officials of the DGT, the physical displacement of taxpayers to a tax office is usually time and money consuming.

“It is particularly expensive for the taxpayer whose head office is far from the competent tax office. Furthermore, the period set aside to fill in tax returns which is the 15th of each month for monthly tax returns and March 15th of each month for annual tax returns, is generally a moment of great affluence in the tax offices characterised by very long queues.”

With the E-filing option, taxpayers can now reconsider spending time travelling long distances or employing experts to get their taxes prepared or queuing at tax offices to get their tax returns processed.

Declaring your taxes online not only saves time and money, but can conveniently be done in the comfort of business offices.

“The taxpayer is not obliged to travel long distances to be physically present at the tax office to submit his or her tax return. You may file your tax return by using your smart gadget provided you can access the DGT website,” the business operators were told.

Another advantage E-filing of taxes is that it ensures greater accuracy as online tax declaration takes guesswork out of the tax return process and especially as the number of forms to fill is considerably streamlined.

The representatives of the enterprises were told that, “When you use online tax software, it is like working with your own personal guide who will hold your hand and walk you through the steps. The simplicity of the process results in fewer errors and creates a quicker processing cycle for individuals and businesses.”

“This modern procedure thus constitutes a major step in the process of improving the tax environment for business,” a document on the electronic filing of taxes handed to the business operators states.