Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS), a leading IT services, business solutions and consulting firm, announced that it has won a three-year contract from the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) for the modernisation of its domestic tax system. This is TCS’s third revenue and tax system automation project in the African region after a successful implementation for the Uganda Revenue Authority and ongoing implementation for the Kenya Revenue Authority. To carry out this transformational engagement, ZRA realised that it needed a strategic partner with strong domain expertise in executing tax administration systems as well as strong technology credibility. TCS was the ideal choice, having done more than 15 tax framework implementations in India, 7 in USA and 2 in Africa. The scope of the project includes providing an integrated tax software application based on TCS’s taxation framework, taxpayer 24/7 portal for e-services delivery, data migration, training, roll-out, warranty and operational support. Tanmoy Chakrabarty, vice president and global head, government industry solutions unit, TCS, said, “The taxation project is all about service delivery transformation through a technology-led, service-oriented approach. The new TCS tax framework will help the Zambian government offer world-class delivery of taxation services to its citizens as well as provide an effective monitoring system for its tax officials. This project once again reiterates our commitment to help the government sector deliver services to its citizens effectively and efficiently, by deploying technology.” Berlin Msiska, commissioner general, ZRA, said, “The TaxOnline project has emerged as one of our critical modernisation initiatives aimed at reducing the cost of compliance and increasing process efficiency. TaxOnline will also enable authorities to detect and deter any tax evasions through intense cross-analysis of tax information and tax compliance, which will eventually improve tax collection. With this system, taxpayers will experience new e-services and simpler tax processes, resulting in improved levels of voluntary compliance.” ZRA, as part of its tax reforms and modernisation programme, has engaged TCS to provide an integrated and multi-tax system covering VAT, income tax, pay-as-you-earn, presumptive tax, turnover tax, mineral royalty tax, excise, property transfer tax, medical levy and withholding tax. Once operational, this system is expected to transform the service delivery to taxpayers, support the country’s sixth National Development Plan and assist ZRA to better control and monitor operations as well as prevent and detect potential revenue leakages. Further, the new system is also expected to bring about a higher degree of accountability and transparency to the public. Source: Article
