Ethiopia to start fingerprint based taxpayer identification

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia- The Ethiopian Customs and Tax Authority (CTA) has announced plans to start a finger print-based tax payer ID system numbers. The new finger print identification system will start as of next months in Addis Ababa continue to towns in regional states.
Mr. Melaku Fenta, CTA General Director told journalist this week that the authority plans to collect 1.5 million taxpayers’ fingerprints within eight months.
according to the plan, the first phase will entail the registration of more than half million businessmen, civil servants and about 180,000 government universities students enrolled in the cost sharing programs.
fingerprint taxpayer’s identification system will replace the currently in use taxpayer identification number (TIN).
“ the (TIN) system allows taxpayers to have more than one identification intentionally and unintentionally because it can use the taxpayers partial or full name by a simple change in spelling”, said Melaku on the problems faced in regards to TIN.
Under the currently in use Tin system, about 433,000 taxpayers have been registered across the nation. According to Ethiopian law a taxpayer has to have only one TIN number.
“Tin duplication has created a problem in the national tax system that is why the authority came to the conclusion to use Biometric system which does not allow duplication to take place”, said Melaku.
Copy Cat Limited, a Kenyan firm has won the contract to provide CTA with biometric equipment to carry out the finger print taxpayer system with 66 million birr.
“the company has enormous experience in Africa and Asia. We will first use biometric registration first within the tax system in Ethiopian and later on would move towards integrating it in other sectors in long term we envision a national identification card”, said Melaku.