20 Aug 2020

Individuals with a gross income of less than P144 000.00 per annum shall not be required to file a tax return this year. 

Speaking during a press conference in Gaborone August 20, Botswana Unified Revenue Services (BURS), acting commissioner general, Mr Segolo Lekau, said however this was on condition that an individual’s total income arose solely from employment, a single employer or an individual subjected to correct Pay As You Earn (PAYE) under the 5th schedule of the legislation. 

Mr Lekau urged all individuals required to file their tax returns and payment (e-filing) to use the organisation’s e-services platform at www.burs.org.bw. 

Individuals, he said,  had the option to use the website or mobile App to file individual tax returns. 

He also said BURS had introduced new Tax Identification Number (TINS) for individuals.

 For individual citizens, the new TIN was Omang number preceded by letter ‘I’ while for non-citizens, the TIN was system generated, said Mr Lekau. 

“As an incentive to online filing, the filing season will run until 30th November 2020.

For convenience, BURS has also enhanced the mobile tax application (MTax App) which will enable employees to submit their tax returns,” he said. 

He said the extension would take care of challenges posed by COVID-19 and would further assist the organisation to observe set health protocols. 

“Completion and submission of tax return is done through BURS mobile tax App for taxpayers whose sole source of income is employment or BURS website for all other taxpayers,” Mr Lekau said.

He advised taxpayers requiring assistance in completing tax return forms or submitting them to contact BURS support team through call centre-17649 between 0730hrs and 1630hrs or efilingsupport@burs.org.bw. 

Mr Lekau said MTax App  was downloadable from Play Store on any mobile device, except iPhones. Mr Lekau implored employers to issue tax certificates timeously to enable employees to meet submission deadline.ends