Presentation of Tax Tracking Platforms in the Digital Sector
18 Sep, 2019
The lack of automated financial transaction tracking tools has given rise to new provisions contained in the 2019 Financial Law. To fill this gap, the Post and Communication Regulatory Agency (ARPCE) has been charged by the Government to set up remote payment solutions, certify electronic payments and track the State’s real-time transactions.
Thus, during a meeting held on Wednesday, September 18, 2019 in Brazzaville, chaired by Henri Loundou; director of cabinet of the Minister of Finance and Budget; ARPCE, led by its director general Yves Castanou, presented the progress of projects under development.
These include the Telecom Revenue Monitoring System project (TRVS), a tool developed to meet the growing needs of regulatory and tax authorities. This automated and fully reliable tool, according to ARPCE, will not only capture and account for all the actual revenue from recharge cards and telecom service sales, but also cross check financial statements from data collected at source, and to make the necessary tax adjustments; monitor and analyse the evolution of the mobile service market and control the financial flows of this sector vital to national economy.
This second platform presented is Mobile money monitoring (M3). It is a mobile money tracking platform, designed for governments and regulators. This solution provides authorities with all the visibility they need to enforce compliance with applicable mobile money laws and regulations, such as compliance with the amount of electronic money allowed to an operator.
Another platform is the Payment Certification Unit (PCU). It is a system that certifies payments, on behalf of the State of Congo, on all electronic payments over the territory. PCU defines the end-to-end complance chain, and the role of the services in the new standard for “certified mobile money” payments. PCU also allows interconnexion with the Ministry of Finance to the e-payroll system and can be interconnected with the Directorate General for Tax and State Property (DGID).
ARPCE also presented on the Electronic Tax Stamp (ETS) project. A time stamp and proof of certification of a secure payment, using a unique ETS number that is associated with each slip, security, invoice or receipt issued by the biller. As part of the dematerialisation and better monitoring of government revenue, ETS can be used to pay the fees of certain administrative formalities, such as the application for a passport, driver's licence, land title, birth certificate, thus freeing oneself from the old paper tax stamps.
The last platform presented is the Digital Hub-tracking of financial transactions. This hub is a centralised system of volume and tracking of funds transfer service, as well as payments for regulatory and tax control, data analysis for anti-money laundring purposes, exploitation of funds data for national security, security, consumer protection, knowledge and market tracking of money transfer services.
