Windhoek – TaxTim, launched by PwC to help Namibians do their own tax returns in less than 30 minutes, is an online digital tax assistant that helps taxpayers to complete their tax returns with confidence. The service comes at an opportune time, as the tax return submission deadline for all individuals is June 30, 2015.
According to PwC, TaxTim asks simple and easy questions, then uses the taxpayers’ answers to fill in their tax return instantly and professionally. The tool automatically calculates all the required totals, does all the complicated tax work and populates the schedules in the tax return automatically. The final product is a printable tax return, ready for submission to Inland Revenue.
PwC’s TaxTim is the result of a joint business relationship between PwC Namibia and TaxTim, a South African-based technology company established in 2011 after raising seed funding from Google.
PwC Namibia Tax Technology Manager, Mari-Nelia Hough said: “The questions that TaxTim asks to gather tax return information were developed by the PwC Namibia team of tax experts. The system contains all the knowledge and tax legislation required to output compliant tax returns for Inland Revenue. The PwC team are available via the website’s helpdesk to answer any extra questions and help users if they get stuck. It is great working with the support of the experienced TaxTim technology team.”
Meanwhile, Stefan Hugo, Tax Partner at PwC Namibia, remarked: “PwC’s TaxTim combines tried and tested technology with PwC Namibia’s 40 years of tax experience. We are excited to offer PwC’s TaxTim to our existing corporate clients and provide this innovative service to help their employees with their tax returns. We also expect to build new professional relationships directly with the public in a way that has never before been possible.
“We believe that TaxTim is the first of many service offerings from PwC that will utilise great technology combined with the expert skills of PwC people, to bring quality, affordable professional products to the Namibian market.”
TaxTim CFO Marc Sevitz noted, “Working with the leading PwC brand provides immense credibility for our brand entering this new territory. We couldn’t be more pleased to announce the result of our collaboration. Working with the dedicated team in Namibia and being able to help so many more people with making tax easy is a definite highlight of my professional career.”
According to TaxTim CTO Evan Robinson, “In South Africa TaxTim has helped over 1.3 million people make taxes easy. The TaxTim server runs on Amazon’s elastic compute cloud, so can scale to meet even the heaviest taxpayer traffic, including the annual rush for last minute submissions.”
TaxTim’s launch special pricing starts from N$370 but users can qualify for a 10 percent discount by referring friends, or get up to 30 percent off by being the office hero and registering fellow employees for Employee Assist! Employee Assist is available to employers to help their employees stay tax compliant. Using the service could significantly reduce the time employees spend worrying about tax returns at work, and time taken off to stand in line at Inland Revenue.
by Staff Reporter