Youth Firm Imparts Knowledge On Tax
Isaac Pinielo | Monday September 11, 2017 15:46
Through his company, Great Ant, he has taken it upon himself to start teaching people about tax and tax-related issues.
“We will be conducting 30 minutes training workshops for untrained taxpayers in companies and government departments. We provide video tutorials on taxation and its benefits to individuals for free,” he said.
According to Ratshoswane, this will benefit the country since the income tax that is paid by taxpayers is an important source of revenue for the government.
Apart from benefitting the country, he said his company will get more exposure as he hopes that more people will enlist his company which deals with tax, payroll and advisory. “The workshops are self-funded as part of our marketing and corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy,” said Ratshoswane. He further said people should not always demonise tax, stating that there are a lot of incentives in tax payment, especially in farming.
For example, he said, farmers who sell livestock for slaughter are entitled to a four percent withholding tax that will be deducted on the payments made to them. He said the incentive was introduced to ensure that sellers or dealers in livestock comply with their tax obligations. “A withholding tax will be deducted from the farmers, so there will be incentives for the farmers to normalise their tax affairs with the Botswana Unified Revenue Services (BURS),” said Ratshoswane.
According to Ratshoswane, the income tax that is paid by taxpayers is an important source of revenue for the government. He said citizens are also consumers of the country’s public infrastructure and facilities, adding that if they want these facilities and infrastructure to improve, it is also their duty and responsibility to contribute towards building and maintaining it.
“Paying income tax and filing income tax returns is one way of doing that,” he said.
He said Batswana should fulfill this duty with pride because the income tax payers form a very small part of the country’s population.
He appealed to Batswana to come on board to be proactive and allow them to hold workshops in their businesses.
So far, Ratshoswane, whose company was named Botswana’s best youth owned firm in consulting services, said he has partnered with KDM Global Consult in Francistown to assist in covering the northern part of the country with similar workshops.
Ratshoswane also indicated that the more people understand about tax, the more the government will benefit.
“The response is very good and we hope that, with time, more people will start to understand the benefits of paying tax,” he said.