Oromia Revenue Bureau Onboards TeleBirr for Tax Collection

ADDIS ABABA – Oromia Region Revenue Bureau has teamed up with Ethio Telecom to enable its customers to settle their taxes through the telco’s mobile-based payment service TeleBirr.

The bureau and telecom firm concluded a Partnership Agreement on Thursday, that saw the official implementation of the Telebirr-integrated tax collection system in the region.

The system has enabled authorities in the region to collect Tax and Custom Commission Payments from businesses and other taxpayers via Telebirr.

This partnership, Ethio Telecom says, “would immensely empower Oromia Region Revenue Bureau to digitize its payment system and easily” collect tax and customs tariffs.

It has also enabled taxpayers in the region to settle payments at their convenience” via TeleBirr App or USSD (*127#) and get payment authentication receipts in real-time, according to the telco.

Launched in May 2021, TeleBirr has more than 32.2 million subscribers who have made over 375.2 billion birr worth of transactions as of last month.

Apart from revenue bureaus of Addis Ababa city administration and now the Oromia region, the platform is currently being used by the Ministry of Revenue and Ethiopian Customs Commission to collect taxes at the federal level.

The telco is now pushing to secure more partnership deals with other regional revenue bureaus seeking to digitize their tax collection systems.

“Our company is currently working with other regional states to implement Telebirr based tax payments,” Ethio Telecom said.

Rival Safaricom Ethiopia plans to launch its own mobile-based mobile phone-based financial service under the brand M-PESA later this year, after landing the license from the national bank of Ethiopia on May 11, 2023.