Namibia Country Profile

Tax Administration

Individual Corruption

Although the estimated bribe-paying to tax officials in Namibia is low compared to other countries in the region, the Afrobarometer 2008 reveals that tax officials from the Ministry of Finance and local governments are perceived to be involved in corruption.

Business Corruption

According to the World Bank & IFC Enterprise Surveys 2006, some companies operating in Namibia report that interaction with tax officials occasionally entails payments of bribes. Although the number of companies reporting that they expect to give gifts in meetings with tax officials is rather low, the data should be seen as a consequence of the regulatory burden facing companies in the field of paying taxes. Compared to OECD countries, a company operating in Namibia should expect to make more than double the amount of payments to tax authorities every year than a company operating in an OECD country.

According to the Namibia Institute for Democracy Tackling Corruption 2007 report, tax officials solicit bribes from businesspeople in return for destroying evidence of their debts to the Receiver of Revenue. Nevertheless, even after paying bribes, some businesspeople still receive letters of demand from the tax authorities a few days later giving them ultimatums for settling their tax payments.

Frequency

The World Bank & IFC: Doing Business 2010:
- A medium-sized company operating in Namibia must on average make 37 payments to the tax authorities every year and spend 375 hours preparing, filing, and paying taxes at a total tax rate of 9.6% of profits.

Afrobarometer: Summary of Results Namibia 2008:
- 12% of respondents in this household survey do not think that tax officials are involved in corruption.

- 37% of respondents think that some of them are involved in corruption.

- 38% of respondents believe that most or all of them are involved in corruption.

The World Bank & IFC: Enterprise Surveys 2006:
- 2.5% of companies expect to give gifts in meetings with tax inspectors.

- 3% of companies polled report that they expect to give gifts in their meetings with tax inspectors compared to the regional average of 20%.

- The surveyed companies spend an average of 3 days a year in meetings with tax officials.

- 4% of the companies surveyed identify tax administration as a major constraint compared to a regional average of 33%.