The tax expert Alain Symphorien Ndzana explains that it is first necessary to solve the structural problem of the tax cadastre which lies mainly in the dispersion of competences between the administration in charge of the domains and the cadastre and that in charge of finances.
In an interview granted to the weekly Cameroon Business Today (CBT) on Wednesday November 16, the tax expert Alain Symphorien Ndzana explains that certain measures taken by the Cameroonian government have enabled the broadening of the tax base, which has resulted by the evolution of the taxpayer file.
“The number of persons subject to property tax thus increased from 170,518 in 2015 to 660,469 in 2016, an increase of 287%. The problem is that after the tremor observed in 2016 (3,905,000,000 FCFA), i.e. an increase of 124%, this widening of the base of the TPF (tax on land property) results rather in a drop in revenue : 3,652,000,000 FCFA in 2017, i.e. a fall of 6.5%, 2,443,000,000 in 2018, i.e. a fall of 33%, 2,249,000,000 FCFA in 2019, i.e. a fall of 8%, 2,044,000 000 FCFA in 2020, a drop of 9% “explains the expert.
He continues that the absence of recovery measures and the security crises in the North-West, South-West, East and Far-North regions, mentioned in the ten-year report of the General Directorate of Taxes (DGI), do not justify this reduction in their own country. , because these regions are not the most taxable regions.
According to Alain Symphorien Ndzana, the Cameroonian tax system being declarative, the tax administration must create the conditions leading the person liable for the TPF to feel surrounded and obliging them to spontaneously fulfill their tax obligations. With regard to the property tax, the expert explains that it is first necessary to resolve the structural problem of the tax cadastre which lies mainly in the dispersion of competences between the administration in charge of the domains and the cadastre and that in charge finances.
“The fact that this administration, which registers all deeds of transfer of ownership, does not have its own database of municipal buildings, constitutes a major handicap for the collection of property tax. Finally, it is imperative to relaunch the real estate cadastre created by article 40 of decree n° 72-567 of October 18, 1972, which made it possible to list and follow the evolution of the real estate heritage of natural and legal persons for the purpose of essentially fiscal explains Alain Symphorien Ndzana.
