The regional workshop on the evaluation of tax expenditures opened this Tuesday, October 8 in Abidjan. Four days of exchange and sharing of experience on tax transition to improve sub-regional integration through the strengthening of coordination mechanisms in WAEMU member states.
Faced with many economic and social challenges, these countries hope to find strategies to optimize domestic tax revenues. In these States, however, tax exemptions are very often considered to be factors in the poor performance of tax administrations. A situation that leads them to mobilize more domestic revenue.
In 2016, the amounts of tax exemptions stood at 329 billion FCFA in 2016, 359 billion FCFA in 2017 and 341 billion FCFA in 2018 in Côte d'Ivoire. These figures represent just over 10% of total revenue mobilized and 1.4% of GDP at these different periods.
" Faced with these losses of revenue due to tax expenditures, it is important to have relevant information, in order to appreciate at its true value, the budgetary, economic and social impact of the tax advantages that the State grants to certain companies, certain sectors of activity or certain categories of the population ," said Ouattara Sié Abou, Director General of Taxes in Côte d'Ivoire.
This workshop is being held in a context marked by the will of the WAEMU authorities to rationalize tax expenditures in order to improve the level of mobilization of tax revenue in the Member States.
A will materialized by the adoption by the WAEMU Council of Ministers, on June 21, 2019, of an action plan for the optimal mobilization of tax revenue with a view to consolidating the budgetary space of the Member States and enabling them to carry out the investment expenditure necessary for the implementation of the economic and social development plans.