Revenue collection by MRA for year 2017/2018 amounts to Rs 87.5 billion

Revenue collection by the Mauritius Revenue Authority (MRA) for the financial year 2017-2018 amounted to approximately Rs 87.5 billion, as compared to Rs 76 billion for the year 2016-2017, representing an increase of 15 % over the preceding year.

The Director-General of the MRA Sudhamo Lal expressed satisfaction regarding the MRA’s performance which has been attributed to the various tax policy measures, economic situation and efficiency gains in tax administration. He further highlighted that out of the Rs 87.5 billion, around Rs 83.1 billion have been collected for the Consolidated Fund and Rs 4.4 billion for special funds, such as the National Pensions Fund, the National Savings Fund, Lotto Fund, Responsible Gambling and Capacity Building Fund and National CSR Foundation.

He further underscored that the MRA has achieved better performance with regards to debt collections which amounted to Rs 2.6 billion as compared to Rs 1.9 billion for 2016-2017, in addition to income tax e-filing, e-payment and tracking of non-filers as well as from drug seizure.

Regarding the Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2018, Mr Lal added that the MRA will focus on measures aiming at reducing income inequality and improving quality of life of citizens, as announced in Budget 2018-2019. Among the initiatives, he added, are the implementation of the Negative Income Tax allowance since November 2017 for low-income earners with less than Rs 9,900 monthly and the Special Allowance as from January 2018 aims at topping up wages of low-income earners so that they receive a minimum of Rs 9,000 monthly.

Concerning these two main initiatives to alleviate poverty, he pointed out that as at date, 81,367 persons have benefitted from both schemes with a total amount of Rs 286 million which have been disbursed.

Furthermore, he stressed that Mauritius has improved its ranking in the World Bank’s Report moving from 45th in 2017 with regards to paying taxes to the 10th position in 2018, which he attributed to the successful sensitisation campaigns being carried out by the organisation. He further expressed satisfaction that 99.6% of individuals are filing their returns electronically.

Regarding the way forward, the MRA Director further dwelt on the new measures announced in Budget 2018/2019 with the intention of alleviating tax payers from the tax burden and increase the income of households, namely the increase in the Income Exemption Threshold by Rs 5,000 for each category exempting those earning an annual income of Rs 305,000 from the tax bracket. Similarly, he added, Income Tax rate has been decreased from 15 percent to 10 percent for those earning between Rs 305,000 and Rs 650,000 annually.