DOMESTIC TAXATION


The main reforms at the level of the Directorate General of Domestic Taxes are based on:

  • Upgrading of management tools;
  • Organizing  of services;
  • Improving tax legislation.
UPGRADING MANAGEMENT TOOLS


The objective is to modernize the management tools of the tax administration, to bring it into line with the evolution of the national and international environment. In this respect, the emphasis is placed on the dematerialization of procedures, coupled with the construction of an efficient information system serving as a decision-making tool. The dematerialization of procedures is reflected in the remote declaration and remote payment of taxes, the implementation of the Electronic Land Registry and the development of an application dedicated to the online transmission of financial statements. The tele-declaration and tele-payment have been implemented in Côte d'Ivoire since 2017.

The Livre Foncier Electronique (LIFE) is an application that allows notaries to consult land titles online. The goal is to extend access to this tool to banking institutions and other structures involved in the land chain in order to strengthen real-estate transactions. A platform for online filing of financial statements has been functional since 2018. Companies have the possibility to transmit their financial statements on the said platform. Beyond this functionality, the system allows accountants to endorse their clients' financial statements online before filing on the platform. The construction of an integrated information system as a decision support tool relies on the establishment of an integrated property tax platform, the interconnection of domestic tax and customs services.

The yield of the property tax is still insufficient compared to the existing potential. The challenge of raising the level of collection of this tax requires a reliable database of plots and their owners. To this end, a framework based on the "blockchain" system has been put in place to enable the tax authorities to automatically access data from certain structures such as those in charge of electricity and water supply in order to enrich the land database. The interconnection of the information systems of domestic tax and customs administrations has been effective since 2015. It has enabled the taxpayer identification system of the two administrations to be harmonized and the amount of customs operations carried out by economic operators to be made available to the domestic tax authorities through file exchanges. The objective is to set up a platform for the exchange of information in real time. In addition to modernizing and simplifying procedures, these reforms are intended to provide the tax authorities with a reliable database that can be used to automatically reconstruct the turnover of all companies and compare them with the declarations filed. The system will be improved by linking the tax administration with the information systems of other administrations.

In addition to modernizing and simplifying procedures, these reforms are intended to provide the tax authorities with a reliable database that can be used to automatically reconstruct the turnover of all companies and compare them with the declarations filed. The system will be improved by linking the tax administration with the information systems of other administrations.

In addition to these reforms, a reorganization of the services of the Directorate General of Domestic Taxes has been carried out, focusing on :

  • the reorganization of certain central departments ;
  • the continuation of the segmentation of the tax population.

The reorganization of services was based on the distinction between management, design and coordination missions and operational functions. This is the case, for example, of the separation of audit functions from those of intelligence investigations and risk analysis. As part of the optimization of service management, the Domestic Taxes Administration has opted for the segmentation of the tax population. This policy has led to the creation of a department dedicated to the tax management of large companies (DGE), and another to the management of medium-sized companies.

REFORMS TO THE TAX SYSTEM


The reforms undertaken within the tax system aim to strengthen taxpayer guarantees, particularly in relation to audits and litigation. As a consequence Thus, the length of corporate audits have been reduced by half for most types of audit, and the amount of the bank guarantee to be produced in order to benefit from a deferment of payment in the context of litigation has been reduced from 25% to 10%. In addition, a new Investment Code was adopted in 2018 focusing mainly on targeting tax benefits on specific sectors such as industry, agro-industrial processing, health infrastructure, and tourism real estate. As such, significant tax exemptions in investment and operation phases are granted to investments in the sectors mentioned above. For other sectors, tax credits are granted in proportion to the amount of the investment and are reinforced according to the respect of criteria relating to local content (employment, shareholding, subcontracting). Furthermore, more specific measures have been taken in favor of SMEs in terms of tax exemptions in order to encourage the creation of national champions, as this type of company often encounters difficulties during the first five years of its existence.

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