Japan Assists Tax Collection Function in Cambodia

By Sok Lak

The Ministry of Economy of Finance and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on June 23 signed the Record of Discussions of the “Project for Capacity Development of General Department of Taxation under the framework of Public Financial Management (PFM) Reform” at General Department of Taxation to strengthen and improve tax collection function in Cambodia.

The Record of Discussions signed by H.E. Kong Vibol, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Economy of Finance and Mr. Suzuki Yasujiro, Chief Representative, JICA Cambodia Office .

The Project is connected with previous project that JICA implemented with previously known as Tax Department aiming at building capacity of Tax Officer in the area of administration management, tax audit and taxpayer services. It is the third step after second step finished from 2007 to 2010 and the first finished from 2004 to 2006.

Mr. Suzuki Yasujiro said that Japan encourage Cambodia to build good government in country especially public financial management reform. In the same, Japan also helps to train and build human resource on public and custom taxation in order to increase national income.

He added that the strengthen on taxation human resource start from 2004 as focus on training audit official in the first step and prepare study program and strengthen capacity of taxation official in second step. For third is to strengthen basic of government income in Cambodia by sending Japan expert to help taxation administration and support taxation official daily transaction.

H.E. Kong Vibol said that helping of Japan on building capacity of taxation official increased the amount of tax every year and it also help this sector stay on the way of public financial reform in Cambodia. “The cooperation between Cambodia and Japan on this sector makes taxation sector better from day to day.

In light of such important area and still new area for improvement to be identified, JICA has decided to extend this new project aiming at building institutional capacity of GDT in order to strengthen and improve Tax Collection Function. This new project will also benefit to the effort of the Ministry of Economy and Finance leading to the reform of Public Financial Management Program.

This technical cooperation project will last for 3 years tentatively starting from September this year until September 2014. There are two main outputs expected from this project. First, institutional capacity of GDT in Tax Audit will be strengthened through Self-Assessment Regime. Second, taxpayer service will be improved to meet the increasing number of taxpayers in Cambodia.

Source: The Southeast Asia Weekly, June 26-Jule 2, 2011, Vol. 5, Issue 26, Page 10