Download South Sudan

South Sudan Tax System
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
June 2016
Mr. Joseph Kenyi
Director of Revenue
Republic of South Sudan
Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning
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Content of this presentation
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
1. Historical background of South Sudan & taxation system.
2. On going tax reform in Republic of South Sudan
3. The current challenges in administering tax in south Sudan
Jul-16
Slide 2
Brief background of RSS and of taxation system
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
• South Sudan gained its independence in July 2011 and before taxation
system and including customs management was controlled by the North
Sudan.
• The infrastructure development in south Sudan had been neglected for
years due to the long struggle for our independence.
• Majority of the customs staff are policemen and women deployed by the
ministry of interior but its management is under Ministry of finance and
economic planning
• Taxation act for South Sudan was developed and signed in 2009
• Revenue collections accounts less than 4% of GDP
• South Sudan is land rocked country with the population of around 12
millions.
• South Sudan has been characterised by the internal conflict since its
independence in 2011
Jul-16
Slide 3
RSS Tax System
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
• South Sudan has adopted a devolved system of
government, where there are three tiers of government
as follows:
• National
• State
• Local
• All the three tiers are empowered to levy taxes.
• As under any devolved system, tax powers of the
National and State governments are enshrined in the
transitional constitution of South Sudan.
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On-going tax reform
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
We have our tax collection process, currently our taxes are collected by the
commercial banks and this has reduced corruption
Introducing National revenue authority, this will help in tax administration
system both customs and domestic tax
We have recently joined East African countries and this will boost our
imports and open the door of the country to the rest of the countries
We are in the process of joining custom union, this will directly reduce
custom duties which will accelerate trade
Training partnership with countries like Tanzania and Uganda
we have introduced the staff code of conduct
We have introduced internal monitoring systems like reporting producers,
dispute management system and performance evaluation system.
Jul-16
Slide 5
Tax administration reform.
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
Introduced self-assessment system
We have developed automated revenue collection system, where all
revenue collection are through the commercial banks.
Few internal operations like audit and collection functions are
supported by automated information.
We have segmented our taxpayers based on the turnover and sectors
like Large taxpayer, medium taxpayers and small taxpayer to improve
taxpayer compliance
Introduced the computerization tax system as part of tax reform and
we are looking forward to upper grade it to more robust system that
will be used by both customs and DoT (Syntax and ASYCUDA )
Jul-16
Slide 6
Tax administration reform continues
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
We have signed training memorandum of understand with Uganda
and Tanzania for both tax and custom officers.
We have trained over 1500 tax officers in the region and in since
independence in 2011 to support the tax administration in South
Sudan
We have revised or amended our taxation 2009 two times as means
of addressing some of the loopholes within the tax law
we have good relations with our donors like IMF, Trademark east
Africa, USAD and JICA who have continuously provided experts and
advisers to support tax administration and custom management
We have currently signed National revenue authority Act which will
harmonised our revenue collection and administrative systems.
Have been training and educating our taxpayers since 2011 an
measure of improving the tax compliance
Jul-16
Slide 7
Custom reform
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
South Sudan has become the member of world customs
organisations(WTO) since 2012
We have joined EAC as way of opening the boarders and joining the
rest of the world the business,
We are in the process of joining the custom union
We have trained more than 732 custom officers as part of improving
our customs services
We have good support from the donors like IMF, JICA, Trademark
east Africa and African development bank who are supporting
customs
We have harmonised our HS codes with that of east African countries
 We have developed new custom low, five years custom strategy and
boarder management framework.
Jul-16
Slide 8
Achievement of the reform in last fours
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
Annual Revenue collections
Year
Total
2015/16 up to May)
2012/13
2013/14
2014/15
890,646,361 1,016,573,248 1,415,934,656 2,977,630,486
Annual revenue collections
3,500,000,000
3,000,000,000
2,500,000,000
2,000,000,000
1,500,000,000
1,000,000,000
500,000,000
0
2012/13
2013/14
2014/15
2015/16 up to May)
Financial year
Jul-16
Slide 9
Challenges for on going tax reform
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
Historical challenges
 There was little investment is south Sudan and
infrastructure was extremely poor.
 The new Government that come to power in 2011, had little
experience to take up huge task that’s was waiting the new
country.
 Independence was achieved in 2011 but the country
technically remained at war with North Sudan.
 Staff experience both at customs and domestic tax was very
little and this made our starting point difficult
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Challenges for on-going reform
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
Governance
After the impendence in 2011 planning and communications across
the government was a challenged.
Much as customs was administratively under Ministry of finance but it
was being staffed by the Ministry of interior and the coordination
between these two ministries proved difficult
The police still retains control mentally with boarder management
rather than inclusive attitude which more conducive to trade
facilitation and development.
Un harmonised exceptions issued by the different ministries
Lack of tax policy unit to in the Ministry of finance to deal with tax
policy issues
Jul-16
Slide 11
Challenges for on-going reform
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
Economic
Internal conflict since 2013 have reduced investment
coming into South Sudan
Donor have put on hold their support because of the
internal conflict
Reduced oil prices allied with the conflict have reduced
national revenue substantially and making it difficult for
the country to invest in infrastructure, staff and support its
operational needs
Lack of operational budget to support on-going reforms
Jul-16
Slide 12
Ministry of Finance and
Economic Planning
Thank you!
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