The measure is dropped three years after it was announced and after the investment made in the creation of a centralized system that would allow its operation.
The development of the centralized system was to be undertaken by EMIS, while the banks were responsible for ensuring the parameterization of their internal systems, for the correct accommodation, in a global investment estimated at 800 thousand euros. But it was not the technical difficulties, nor the investment, that
weighed in the decision to retreat, according to Expansão.
Charging the 2.5% could jeopardize the efforts to expand banking in a country with low levels. The World Bank estimated at 49% the percentage of the population with an open bank account at the end of 2019, as stated in the report for releasing a loan of USD 700 million to Angola, dated February 2021.
As soon as the withholding started to be carried out, "people could opt for other forms of payment instead of using the POS", admitted Mário Nascimento, president of the Angolan Association of Banks (ABANC), which is why the banking sector has opposed the measure since the beginning. The norm that determined the withholding of 2.5% on POS receipts appeared, for the first time, in the 2020 OGE bill and was in force for “three fiscal years”, without ever leaving the drawing board.
Only in the OGE proposal for 2023 did the Government assume that there were no conditions for the implementation and proposed the "elimination of the provision that determines withholding tax, at the rate of 2.5%, of all receipts made via POS (Multicaixa)", by way of VAT, as read in the bill approving the OGE 2023.
Since 2020, when it was announced, the proposal has been opposed by the entire national financial system, including the National Bank of Angola, which has expressed its disagreement, as it goes against the efforts to spread banking throughout the economy", as reported by Expansão in the 17 September 2021 edition. This is "an obvious risk in a country with low levels of banking", underlined a banking source, reflecting the resistance of banks.
Despite the opposition, the AGT insisted on applying the rule that Mariana Gouveia de Oliveira, a lawyer and specialist in tax law, considered "disproportionate and inappropriate", being unaware of similar systems in other jurisdictions." Just think of the huge volume of transactions carried out daily and that the banks will have to process and determine, delivering the amount collected in just 24 hours", illustrated the coordinator of the book "The Angolan VAT Code - Annotated and Commented", in 2021, in response to questions posed by Expansão.
Fonte: https://expansao.co.ao/angola/interior/agt-desiste-de-retencao-de-25-de-...
