The 2024 Cameroon Finance law introduces a new requirement for visa applications

|By Baba Samba|

The newly promulgated finance law compels business owners to present a TAX COMPLIANCE CERTIFICATE as a necessity for visa applications.

The Cameroon Finance Law for the year 2024, Law No. 2023/019 of 19 December 2023, which went operational on January 1, 2024 compels Cameroonian commercial operators, entrepreneurs and companies with duly registered businesses in cameroon to obtain a TAX COMPLIANCE CERTIFICATE upon declaration or payment of taxes, duties or levies. According to the legal text, such a document shall “certify that the taxpayer is in good standing with his or her tax declaration obligations and does not owe any tax as at the date of issue”. As per section M 94c of the law, a Cameroonian businessman applying for a visa at a diplomatic or consular mission is required to present a valid TAX COMPLIANCE CERTIFICATE, failure of which such an application would be declined.

Others activities that fall under the purview of this provision include:

– transfers of funds abroad by professional tax payers,

Issuance of exemption certificates and payment of taxes and duties,

– payment of invoices and subsidies by the state, regional and local authorities, public establishments, semi-public enterprises and private companies, and

– export transactions.

Per the wordings of a press release made public on December 29th, 2023 by the minister of finance, Louis Paul Motaze, the TAX COMPLIANCE CERTIFICATE is a substitution of what was formerly termed the Tax Clearance Certificate which, henceforth, will assist with the tracking of crafty businessmen who continually evaded paying taxes. According to the government, this measure whose primary objective is to increase tax revenue will further incorporate the informal sector which represents 45% of Cameroon’s GDP with a below-the-target record of 5% tax payment.

The TAX COMPLIANCE CERTIFICATE is obtainable and verifiable online on the tax authority’s (Directorate General of Taxation) website.