Tanzania should negotiate settlements with taxpayers over 11 trillion shillings tied up in longstanding tax disputes, the Speaker of the National Assembly has said, arguing that this approach could allow the government to recover a substantial portion of the money without waiting for court cases to finish. Mussa Azzan Zungu made the call while responding to concerns raised by the Finance Minister, Ambassador Khamis Mussa Omar, about revenue collection challenges during parliamentary discussions on Wednesday.
The Finance Minister told Parliament that approximately 11 trillion shillings in government revenue remained tied up in various tax cases and urged the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) to speed up their handling. However, he cautioned that disputes could not all be resolved immediately because tax assessments and recovery procedures were governed by established legal requirements. Some cases remained at the objection stage, while others involved disputed tax assessments referred to the Tax Revenue Appeals Board (TRAB), with further appeals possible through the Tax Revenue Appeals Tribunal (TRAT) and the courts.
Zungu identified delays in resolving tax disputes as a major concern, noting that some cases had remained unresolved for between 13 and 14 years. He proposed that the government engage taxpayers and explore mutually acceptable settlement arrangements, allowing part of disputed amounts to be paid upfront while remaining legal proceedings continued. According to Zungu, this approach could enable the government to collect at least 60 per cent of the revenue currently tied up in disputes, rather than waiting for all cases to conclude.
The Speaker emphasised that constructive engagement between the government and taxpayers could help reduce the amount of revenue locked in prolonged disputes and strengthen the government's ability to finance development programmes. He stressed that the proposal was not intended to interfere with judicial processes or undermine relevant legal authorities, but to establish an alternative approach to revenue recovery while protecting taxpayers' rights. The parliamentary debate highlighted the challenge facing the government in balancing the need to mobilise revenue with taxpayers' rights to challenge disputed tax assessments through established legal channels.