The Seychelles Revenue Commission (SRC) has over the past five months hosted a series of workshops to various entities across Seychelles, as part of its strategy to boost increased tax and customs education to taxpayers.
The sessions facilitated by professionals from the Commission’s tax and customs division covered a wide range of topics such as, the type of taxes administered by SRC, obligations of employees and employers towards income tax, the newly introduced bonus schemes, value added tax, exempt emoluments, the rights businesses are granted under the tax laws, the role and services provided by SRC, the customs laws, procedures, mandate related to concessions and temporary importation amongst others.
Held over a half day at the business premises, the sessions tailored upon request of the businesses also aims to enhance the relationship between taxpayers and the Commission to foster a culture of tax compliance.
Staff members with roles assigned in mostly the human resources and finance attended the sessions delivered at laïla, Seychelles a Tribute Portfolio Resort, Ascent Project, Alphonse Island Lodge Ltd, Absa Bank Limited, the Department of Trade and the Central Bank of Seychelles.
An informative session was also delivered to a group of students currently studying the entrepreneurship module as part of their business administration degree, at the University of Seychelles (UniSey). The dedicated session served as an opportunity to improve the students’ knowledge on taxes in Seychelles, importance of compliance, and the obligations of taxpayers when it comes to the tax laws in place, to allow them to better prepare for end of year course assignment which part thereof entails submitting a business plan.
A customized session focused on customs concessions and procedures for temporary importation were also delivered to the Department of Tourism. The session highlighted the associated procedures that one must follow when either importing, temporarily importing, re-importing or exporting goods to and from Seychelles, when travelling for business trips, meetings, incentives, conference and events, as well as when conducting media familiarization trips to the Seychelles.
Successful grantees of the Seed Capital Grant for the year 2024 also had the chance to attend the tax and customs awareness session, whilst most recently a similar session was also held with the awardees of the local grant administered by the Seychelles National Youth Council (SNYC) after having successfully pitched their business initiative to the SNYC local grant committee.
Speaking about the need to have more guided tax and customs sessions, the Director for Taxpayer Education and Service Delivery, Ms. Sheryl Barra said: “This year we started our educational awareness program beyond our targeted timeframe. However, despite this small setback we have managed to facilitate numerous sessions to increase tax and customs knowledge.
“This year we have changed our approach and instead of focusing on wider group sessions, we are customizing our education delivery upon request of the business and hosting the sessions at their premises to further meet their needs.
“Following feedback received we have identified that most issues raised in understanding tax and customs relates to the procedures in place and also the lack of understanding in some of the terms or definitions used in the laws of which we are providing more guidance to ensure the best practice is being adopted and terms are applied correctly.”
Interested organizations willing to learn more about SRC’s tax and customs services can request for a dedicated session via email to tesd@src.gov.sc or by phoning 4293410 / 4294909 during working hours.