GDT suspends e-filing of taxes until August
GDT suspends e-filing of taxes until August
The General Department of Taxation (GDT) has decided to suspend the e-filing of taxes by three months in response to requests from the private sector asking for more time to learn the new filing system.The suspension will be in effect from June until August, the GDT said in an announcement on Wednesday.
It said: “During this period of time, taxpayers who are not ready [to use e-filing] can declare a monthly tax payment temporarily with the old forms and the GDT’s Online-VAT Refund and Online-VAT Credit. Taxpayers who have started using e-filing can use it as usual.”
Anthony Galliano, the CEO of financial services firm Cambodia Investment Management Co Ltd, told The Post on Wednesday that the e-filing programme launched by the GDT was part of the process of using technology to replace outdated manual processing.
He said the launch of online business registrations, which offers simultaneous processing from three ministries at once, is transformative for the Kingdom and puts it in the same league as Singapore and Hong Kong.
Galliano added: “The addition of the GDT’s e-filing system will only further bolster Cambodia’s prominence in the ease of doing business country rankings, which currently stands at a lowly 144 out of 190 economies.
“While the online business registration system is becoming progressively operational, the GDT’s e-filing system is on hold at least until September 2020, given the recently announced delay.”
The postponement was a good decision because the system was not ready to launch, he said, adding that the timing wasn’t right because the Online Business Registration project had just launched and the government would have had to adapt to both new systems at once.
He explained that the e-filing system will improve taxpayer interaction and productivity.
Initially, it would save trips to tax branches to file manually, which he said is ideal timing during the pandemic, as physical trips create unwanted human contact.
