According to the AGT administration, since the implementation of the Value Added Tax (VAT) in 2019 until March 31, 2023, around 608 taxpayers have requested refunds.
The acting director of AGT, Tiago Santos, who this Monday presented the balance of activities for 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, noted that the value of VAT refund requests has grown over the years.
According to the official, 2022 was the year in which there were more requests for refunds (467 requests), which amounted to 140.2 billion kwanzas, with less than half being reimbursed – 60.5 billion kwanzas.
AGT reimbursed taxpayers, in 2019, 879 million kwanzas, in 2020 it was 13 billion kwanzas and in 2021 amounts of 18 billion kwanzas were reimbursed.
Tiago Santos also added that in the first quarter of 2023 reimbursement amounts of 41 billion kwanzas were requested and 13.1 billion kwanzas were reimbursed.
The official added that around 12,000 taxpayers are registered under the general VAT regime and almost 8,000 taxpayers under the simplified regime.
"On the other hand, about nine thousand taxpayers, registered in the general regime, reported credits in their declarations, however, they did not request reimbursements. Thus, the accumulated credit stands at around 700 billion kwanzas", he said.
The acting administrator of the tax authority also spoke about the existence of "some impediments" in the delivery of refunds, mainly due to "unknowing of its mechanism", on the part of many taxpayers.
"We are very engaged in tax education so that all taxpayers have a refund, unfortunately we still have many refund requests by letter, when we have completely electronic VAT", he noted.
"We have many taxpayers who, after receiving a request, thought that the system itself was giving the refund, when the team asks for documents and they actually do not deliver them, we have taxpayers who still do not have all the permitted declarations and ask for the refund", he added.
He recognized, on the other hand, that at AGT level there is still a lot of work to be done: "We have been increasing the teams, today the fastest refund record is nine days, our perspective is that refunds are increasingly faster and more swift".
"But, unfortunately, we still have some lethargy, because some of these processes are analyzed manually and we really need the collaboration of the taxpayer, we are evolving towards a system that will do this manual work", concluded Tiago Santos.
