Carolyn Francis of the OECS Secretariat said on Sunday, via the Observer Radio program Big Issues, that the program would see the implementation of a front-end tax e-filing system for OECS countries like Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia and St. Vincent & the Grenadines.
She said the program comes under the E-Government Regional Integration Project E-GRIP and is indeed an exciting initiative to be brought to fruition.
“The system will enable electronic interactions for the purposes of registration, filing of declarations and returns for all tax styles including Income Tax and VAT. And also, the system will enable what we call electronic payment,” Francis said.
The official launch of this initiative is to take place on Monday in St. Lucia, followed by an inception workshop with the key stakeholders including individuals from the ECCB, as well as other coordinated projects such as SEMCAR and CARTAC and the governments of the OECS.
“There are many benefits to the public sector, private sector, citizens and the government in general. These benefits include a reduction in the administrative costs to the private and public sectors… It provides an additional channel for the collection of government revenues…
“We think that the provision of this system would open greater opportunities since it would mean that all the countries including St. Lucia will get an improved ‘doing business’ ranking. This will ensure that the OECS is more attractive to investors and that the OECS is promoted as a location for doing business,” Francis said.
Additionally, she pointed out that the initiative would also allow for greater efficiency in the tax collection process as it is anticipated that the new method would resonate with the private sector because of the savings, resulting in greater compliance.
Regarding the absence of Antigua & Barbuda and other countries from the initial launch phase, Francis said the four counties on board had actually taken loans to implement the system. She noted that the other members of the OECS will have access to all the documents that will be produced under the program, and will therefore be able to more easily implement the program.
“This is a pilot in the four countries to see the how it would work and the impact on the economies of these four countries. And then the other countries can seek additional resources or find other means of funding for implementation.
“This is the first of several major projects that we would be implementing. In the coming weeks you will hear of other systems. We have been working in the OECS Secretariat and in particular the OECS E-GRIP project with the countries, the donor communities, the World Bank and the CDB to add value to the lives of the people to ensure that you get benefit from improved government services,” Francis said.
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Quelle/Source: Caribarena Antigua, 15.10.2012
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