FCGO plans to roll out RMIS across country by next fiscal

KATHMANDU:

The Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO) is all set to roll out the Revenue Management Information System (RMIS) throughout the country by the next fiscal year following successful implementation of the pilot project in Kathmandu Valley.

RMIS is web-based software which facilitates data collection and compilation, ensures real-time availability of data and even controls fraud cases to some extent.

The FCGO had introduced this software at various government and private institutions in the Valley that were engaged in collection of various taxes in mid-July.

“We selected Kathmandu Valley to launch the pilot project, as around 45 per cent of the total government revenue is raised here,” Financial Comptroller General Shankar Prasad Adhikari said.

“After using RMIS for the last three months, we have concluded that the software is appropriate for use elsewhere

as well. We have, thus, decided to introduce it at all the government and private agencies engaged in tax collection by the end of the next fiscal.”

At present, the FCGO has installed RMIS at 11 branches of commercial banks that work as intermediaries in government tax collection, and their head offices. The same software has also been installed at government offices involved in tax

collection, Nepal Rastra Bank and treasury controller offices in the Valley.

“The software has greatly helped us in collection and compilation of data on tax returns. This will eventually address problems related to data reconciliation, meaning there won’t be much discrepancy on data generated by two different government agencies,” Adhikari said.

“The software has also helped us generate reports on tax returns without putting much effort as the system has been designed to perform this task automatically.”

Another benefit of using the software, according to Adhikari, is that it helps in reducing fraud cases as it disseminates data to all agencies that raise taxes and maintain data on tax collection on a real-time basis.

This generally means taxpayers will not be able to hoodwink government authorities by using fake deposit slips.

Prior to the introduction of the software, chances of using fake deposit slips were high. This is because people, who, say, have to pay a fine for violating a traffic rule first have to deposit the fine amount at a commercial bank. The bank then provides a deposit slip which has to be handed over to the traffic police office.

Before the launch of software, offices, like traffic police office, could not verify whether the amount mentioned in the deposit slip was actually deposited at the bank as they did not have a system to determine this.

“But now offices in Valley, where software is installed, get this information soon after the amount is deposited at banks. This gives them an opportunity to tally the amount mentioned in the deposit slip with that on their system, ending the problem of possible use of fake deposit slips,” Adhikari said.

Source: THT