(Agence Ecofin) – If the Cameroonian tax administration was satisfied with the first 4 months of implementing the tax on money transfers outside banks, underlying challenges are beginning to appear and are pushing user companies to seek of solutions.
The first concrete challenges are beginning to surface with certain major economic players in Cameroon, who, taking advantage of the evolution of electronic payment methods, have digitized a significant part of their customer relationship processes and introduced technologies into the mode of payments.
Sources close to some large companies told theEcofin Agency that reflections are being carried out to see if it is still relevant to accept payments by merchant code, a very important business segment of money transfer operators. The main complication here is the tax sequencing of the process.
According to the legal provisions, the relevant tax is levied inter alia at the time of the withdrawal of any funds received via a non-bank digital transfer. The main consequence of this is that the cash flow from the turnover generated via the mobile is charged with the sum of 0.2% at the time of their withdrawal or transfer to a bank account. However, in the process, for the calculation of the withholding tax on turnover and even in the analysis of the tax situation, this financial burden is not taken into account by the tax authorities.
The actual incidence in the private sector is not known because there is no official estimate on this issue. The tax administration recently indicated that it was able to mobilize 7.4 billion FCFA (more than 10.6 million dollars) in four months, via this specific tax. According to platform estimates Invest In Cameroonthis could generate 20.4 billion FCFA of public resources, by the end of 2022, but also hide losses for the taxable turnover of companies and other individual entrepreneurs paid by Mobile Money or non-bank electronic transfer.
The adoption of this new tax provision had provoked a lively debate in Cameroon. In one of its recent reports, the International Monetary Fund indicated that there is a risk on the advances of financial inclusion, and therefore of the possibilities of economic activities.
The real debate on the tax via non-bank electronic transfers is not yet done in Cameroon. Heavy users indicate, however, that the levels of adoption of these payment methods are likely to stagnate or even decline, if the process of collecting this tax remains in the state.