Taxation will not affect social media users, says TRA
TRA director of tax payers’ education, Mr Richard Kayombo
Dar es Salaam. The Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) has issued a clarification following a meeting they held with representatives from Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
According to TRA director of Taxpayer services and education, Richard Kayombo, the preliminary meeting between the tax authority and Meta was for the intended purpose of orienting the global tech company on Tanzania’s tax regulations. “Meta wanted to know how tax regulations operate in Tanzania. They also wanted to enlighten us on their global operations and their tax compliance in other countries,” said Kayombo.
The taxman also stated that Meta wants to pay their share of taxes in Tanzania just as they do elsewhere, adding that this doesn’t directly affect the end-user of the social media services.
“Tanzanians should rest assured they won’t be affected by the tax plan between TRA and Meta. These engagements target the company and not the users of WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram,” said Kayombo.
On Thursday this week TRA meet with officials from the US-based Meta company, upon which they posted on their official Twitter page that they were mulling taxing services on the tech firm's platforms; these include the most popular social sites globally and locally: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The post circulated quickly and sent panic among the millions of users of the interactive social media services.
The Digital Services Tax (DST) as expounded by TRA and some technology experts aims to ensure the government gets a share of revenue by taxing big tech firms operating in the country.
