Ethiopia’s Federal Auditor General conducted a study which revealed 14 major hotels are making use of inappropriate cash register software that is not compatible with Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority’s (ERCA) server.

The nation’s tax laws dictate ERCA should approve the machines yet the hotels use international software which the Authority is not using.

Proclamation 608/2008 regards using unrecognized cash register software as an outlaw. Aweke Tenna, spokesperson at the Auditor General, noted using such software is illegal even if it does not affect the tax just because ERCA has not approved it.

According to Capital the General Auditor took sample of 29,792 higher tax paying companies out of which 59.4 percent of them do not use electronic cash register machine. This is said to make the collection of tax difficult.

The study also found there are 26 companies with not tax identification number (TIN).

The Authority did not lose anything even if the hotels have been using software that is unrecognized, Desta Bezabeh, Deputy Director of ERCA, explained. He added most of the hotels report their income and the authority is working on ways to reduce the number of hotels without the proper machines.

Source: Capital