(Business in Cameroon) - In April 2018, Cameroon's Inter Patronal Groupings (GICAM) will publish the work of its task force in order to push for fiscal reforms in the country. This has been announced by Célestin Tawamba, the president of this group, during a press conference on January 12, 2018, in Douala, the economic capital.
“We need a taxation plan which integrates the development strand, not simply one for revenue collection. The tax paradigm needs to be changed. The government needs to stop taxing companies based on their turnover. Cameroon is one of the few countries in the world which still proceed that way”, Celestin Tawamba said. In the same wake, Sanda Oumarou, one of GICAM’s vice-presidents added: “in the rare countries in which companies are still taxed that way, not only, it is not 2.2% (it is 0.2% in Cote d’Ivoire for instance) but, there is a cap on the companies’ turnover”.
Célestin Tawamba explained that when companies are taxed on the basis of their turnover, it results in high tax burdens. “It is a heresy to think that the tax burden is feeble in Cameroon. There are companies whose turnover amount billion but, their profit is so low. When you apply the taxation margin (2.2%) on their turnover, there is a tax burden of 35-80% in some cases”, he said.
GICAM also explained that it would publish the whitepaper on Cameroon economy this year. “As much as the government does, we also wish to see Cameroon become an emergent country as soon as possible”, expanded Emmanuel de Tailly, another vice-president of GICAM and managing director of SABC. According to him, the whitepaper will complement the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper (Document de stratégie pour la croissance et l’emploi- DSCE), which is Cameroon’s reference framework in order to be an emerging economy by 2035.
Brice R. Mbodiam