Admission of objection

I am a businessman based in Mwanza. In January this year, the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) issued tax assessments against my business. I lodged objections in February and paid one-third of the assessed tax as required by law to validate the objections. Since then, I have been following up with TRA for an admission letter, but none has been issued. What should I do?

FM, Mwanza

Tax objections in Tanzania are governed by the Tax Administration Act, Cap. 438 (the Act). Previously, taxpayers were required to wait for TRA to issue an admission letter before an objection could formally proceed. However, the law was amended by the Finance Act, 2024 to simplify this process.

Under section 62(8) of the Act, an objection is now deemed to have been admitted on the date the taxpayer complies with the statutory admission requirements. These requirements include, among others, payment of the tax not in dispute or one-third of the assessed tax, whichever amount is greater. As a result, TRA is no longer required to issue a formal admission letter before an objection is regarded as admitted.

In your case, since you lodged your objections and paid one-third of the assessed tax as required by law, your objections were automatically admitted once those requirements were satisfied. The fact that you have not received an admission letter from TRA does not affect the validity or progress of your objections.

Importantly, the 6 month period within which TRA is required to determine an objection starts running from the date the objection is deemed admitted. If TRA fails to determine the objection within that period, the objection is deemed to have been rejected and you become entitled to appeal to the Tax Revenue Appeals Board. You should therefore keep proper records of the date on which you fulfilled the admission requirements, as this date will be important in determining your next course of action should the objection remain unresolved.