Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes: The Problems of the Tax System’s Digital Transformation… Without Solutions-2

Continuing the story of Uncle Bahgat and the ongoing journey of suffering he faces with the tax authority in order to obtain a certificate of the tax position of his company, whose activity stopped in 2011, and his payment of all dues; yet the tax office refuses to issue the certificate because there is no system.

He has not been given the required certificate until now because of the digital transformation of the tax system, which was announced on television screens and news websites but has not yet actually come into force.

Uncle Bahgat said that he saw wonders on his journey with the tax authority, which began at the beginning of last February and is still continuing to date, especially after dealing with the emperors of the files and the archive.

But the bigger problem, in his view, is that after the procedures were completed, the collection department refused to receive any papers or payments from citizens, claiming compliance with the Authority’s instructions circulated to the tax offices not to deal with the paper system and to switch to the electronic system, which is not currently available, which has resulted in halting citizens’ business and the state not collecting its dues from taxpayers.

Uncle Bahgat believes that the way the tax system works in Egypt differs from what is followed in other countries. Digital transformation in all the countries of the world achieves transparency, speed in getting things done and the application of the law without discrimination, whereas the digital transformation of the tax system consists of paper instructions that have resulted in disrupting work and stopping collection under both the paper and the electronic systems.

Uncle Bahgat spoke with sorrow and sadness about the various scenes he witnessed on his journey at the tax office: the first, that all procedures work through various paper forms and there is one computer in each room housing more than six employees; the second scene, an employee falling from the top of a desk while installing a light bulb in place of a broken one, which he and his colleagues had bought because the Authority does not provide any light bulbs, fans, stationery or carbon paper, as one of them said.

Besides scenes of repeated verbal altercations between citizens wishing to pay the fees they owe to the tax authority and the officials of the collection department, who refuse to receive the money until the system is operating.

Uncle Bahgat is gripped by anxiety and pessimism after seeing the institutional incapacity in managing the digital transformation process in the tax system, the inability of managers to solve the problems of daily work, the adoption of passivity as a way of performing and working, and the failure of many of them to show initiative and responsibility and the traits of a successful manager and leader, to follow management science, work in a team spirit, and study problems in order to solve them and take the appropriate decisions to run the utility efficiently and develop performance.

Uncle Bahgat said that he dealt with the El-Nozha tax office, and visited the El-Khalifa and Mokattam tax offices and others in order to see and learn the means of solving his problem, which consists in his request to obtain a certified paper of his tax position, but it turned out that the method and policies of work appear standard and they have no solutions.

It turned out that all these offices are similar in form, substance and pattern of performance, just as the faces of the people are similar too, which convinced him that no official had ever carried out a field follow-up, toured these sites and studied the methods, machinery and problems of the work.

The premises and locations of the tax offices in the districts and neighbourhoods of Cairo do not match the suitable working environment befitting those who work in them; they are crowded with papers, files, desks and staff too; they have no ventilation and are unfit to receive or deal with citizens; they are a fertile environment for the transmission of viruses and diseases, and they constitute harsh conditions for employees and citizens alike.

The New Republic, whose sun we have begun to see in the sky and on the land of Egypt’s villages and hamlets, to transform them into a civilized Egyptian countryside at all levels so as to achieve the integration of the elements of building the Egyptian person, and the hand of construction, development and modernization that has reached all sites and all institutions and fields at all levels, will reach the tax offices and those working in them, in terms of preparation, qualification, training and commitment to professional, legal and ethical conduct, so that the dream of the digital transformation of the tax system comes true.