- Physicians are the keenest community in tax payment, in non-commercial profession tax Cairo 2nd office, contributing 48% of tax office proceed.

- Collecting 4.5 million EGP as taxes from an entertainment program announcer on satellite channels

Minister of Finance, Hany Kadry Dimian, studies the proposal of establishing 6 central tax office for non-commercial professions, within a plan presented by tax administration to tighten control on non-commercial profession sector which didn’t achieve the desired boom in total tax returns so far, similar to other sectors; industrial and commercial activities.

Minister of Finance revealed the planning of establishing non-commercial tax offices in the governorates of Giza, Alexandria, Canal region to serve its three governorates, the fourth in one of Delta governorates, and two offices in Upper Egypt governorates.

He said that there are some under study proposals, including establishment of an electronic connection among data bases in Tax Authority, data bases in Real estate Authority, and different courts, allowing the composition of an integrated data base including all sorts of commercial activity. This will enhance the ability of tax authority to verify tax declarations presented by tax payers.  

The Minister referred that the proposals also include the cooperation with the concerned bodies of non-commercial professionals, such as Cinematic syndicates, Professional Syndicates as Physicians, Engineers, Accountants, and Lawyers Syndicates; in order to exchange data and information related to their members activities, and in the same time adopt many facilities to provide their tax declarations and pay due taxes from those syndicates headquarters.

During the coming period, the Egyptian Tax Authority shall intensify its awareness campaigns concerning the importance of paying due taxes by citizens, as we are within the third month of submitting tax declaration time limit which actually started as of 1st of January 2015 till end of March for individuals and end of April for legal persons.    

The Authority will initiate from the next week to activate tax counselling centers in the headquarters of commercial and industrial chambers. Both tax offices for non-commercial professions in 1st and 2nd  Cairo start to send special committees to receive declarations of non-commercial taxpayers in their syndicate offices as Lawyers, Engineers, Physicians, Commercial Professions, Cinematic Syndicate employees, as well as constitute committees in both tax offices to receive declarations and tax payments.

Head of Tax Authority, Dr. Mostafa Abdel Kader, cleared that all income tax offices all over the country started also in establishing its own committees to facilitate  receiving tax declarations submitted by taxpayers, within the Ministry of Finance’s efforts to raise awareness on the core and pivotal role of taxation in enhancing the State’s resources, enabling the Public Treasury to finance different public spending programs, in particular social dimension programs, and to improve public services, e.g. Education, Health, Housing and Subsidy.     

Head of  non-commercial profession in Cairo 1st office, Mohamed Salah, clarified that awareness campaigns  sent by the office to non-commercial professional communities;  e.g. major hospitals and syndicates, focus on explaining the advantages of Tax Law which includes tax facilitations in addition to the imposed controls to ensure the real value of non-commercial professionals’ annual income, and explain the sanctions stated in this law in case of evasion or submission of misleading declaration.         

He revealed that non-commercial profession in Cairo 1st office collects a lot of data on non-commercial professional works registered in the office through several sources, forming an accurate database of large non-commercial professionals’ activities to be used in verifying the validity of tax declarations submitted to the office. He mentioned that recently due to such data base, the office referred many non-commercial professionals to Anti-Tax Evasion Sector, whereas 4.5 million EGP has been collected from one of artistic programs’ announcer in a satellite channel after getting her real contract with the channel.         

Undersecretary, Samira Farag, cleared that tax accounting has been activated in the offices via campaigns in tuition centers. Also, the offices have been cooperated with Urban Communities Authority, e.g. Fifth Settlement City Authority, significantly contributing in getting the data required to be audited and increase tax base, namely the engineers. The offices resort to different agencies and entities to remove the obstacles faced by tax administration while accounting non-commercial professionals, represented in the insufficient data and information on non-commercial activity, also the percentage of voluntary commitment to pay the due tax is still weak.           

She added that according to 2013 statistics in non-commercial professions 2nd office, physicians are the keenest community in tax payment, in non-commercial profession tax Cairo 2nd office, contributing 48% of tax office proceed.

, then lawyers at the  ratio of 16%, engineers at the ratio of 11%, artists at the ratio of 8%, experts at the ratio of 6%, accountants at the ratio of 5% and lastly teachers at the ratio of 1.16%. 

Samira Farag added that despite such challenges, all tax authority employees have exerted great efforts which have a positive impact on increasing the proceeds by the ratio of 22% in 2012, ensuring further voluntary commitment to a large segment of taxpayers; however the proceeds had not realized yet the expected and targeted results.