30 Nov 2022

Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS) will open new offices in Tsabong next year to promote compliance, administer and enforce revenue laws.

Speaking during stakeholder engagement in Tsabong recently, BURS operations commissioner, Mr Tutu Bakwena said the new offices would help deliver tax services to the people as Kgalagadi South residents travelled long distances to file their taxes.

In the interim, he said BURS has an office at McCarthy’s Rust border about 25 km from Tsabong, which facilitated customers working collectively with Lobatse Regional office and Jwaneng BURS office.

Mr Bakwena encouraged stakeholders to utilise e-services platform where one could file tax online without having to travel long distances.He said the stakeholder engagement forum offered an opportunity to thrash out important issues around BURS core mandate of tax revenue collection, border management and trade facilitation, which enabled them to gather key issues affecting leadership, taxpayers, traders and the public targeted at enhancing service delivery and revenue collection.

Mr Bakwena highlighted that it was important to pay tax as taxation was the largest source of government revenue which played a major role in financing various sectors of the economy such as education, health, and the social amenities budget.

Thus, he said, the mobilization and administration of taxes was critical to development particularly now as the world is experiencing unprecedented health, political and financial challenges.

When the country achieves financial independence, the community members ended up being the ultimate beneficiaries of such development, he said.

“We therefore view you as a pivotal force in keeping BURS focused on the delivery of its mandate in order to support government’s development plans,” he said.

Mr Bakwena said BURS played a critical role in facilitating cross border movement of people at all ports of entry/exit in Botswana and was committed to collaborating with other government agencies deployed to borders for facilitation and ensuring compliance with the relevant statutes governing cross border movement.

He divulged that from August to October 2022, BURS registered a steady increase in revenue collected from borders in Kgalagadi District and recorded an increase in the number of travelers across all the borders in the area.

Mr Bakwena raised a concern that they continued to face challenges of smuggling of restricted and prohibited goods at ungazetted areas in the borderline, which were intercepted during patrols.

Other attempts to smuggle goods are detected at the borders during searches and once intercepted, the perpetrators are accordingly dealt with according to the law, he added.

In an interview, BURS communications manager, Ms Refilwe Moonwa said they had brought a team and all resources necessary to facilitate members with tax education, file their taxes and check their companies, and businesses tax returns which was open to the public at TM Mall in Tsabong from Tuesday until Friday  December 1 2022.

Ms Moonwa encouraged everyone to voluntarily comply to pay tax, adding that the McCarthy’s Rust border alone could not help all of them as some customers had to travel long distances to Jwaneng or Lobatse to get tax services.

She encouraged Batswana to file their tax returns, adding that under normal circumstances the tax filing season ended in September every year but this year the deadline of filling returns had been extended to December 31, 2022.

Meanwhile, Ms Mercy Kelailwe from Werda said in an interview that she appreciated BURS for taking services to the people. She said the move came in handy as it helped her to renew her company tax clearance which she usually undertakes in Jwaneng.

“It has been a challenge to travel to Jwaneng to get services, I hope they open an office here soon as promised,” she said. ENDS