An IRC Officer has been arrested and charged with four separate criminal offenses including official corruption after he admitted to having received a bribe of K10,000 cash from a taxpayer in 2017 in exchange for writing off stamp duties concerning a property transfer.
Mailu Malele who worked as a stamp duties officer at IRC was arrested and charged by the Police detectives of the National Fraud and Anti-Corruption Directorate (NFACD) following on a complaint lodged by IRC’s Commissioner-General Sam Koim.
When announcing the Mr. Malele’s arrest, Commissioner-General Sam Koim says IRC has no place for corrupt officers.
“IRC has zero-tolerance for corruption and therefore established a very robust internal disciplinary process that judiciously deals with complaints against IRC staff,” says Koim.
Koim added that the stamp duties section had been a high-risk area where a lot of people are evading taxes and this arrest marks the beginning of clean-up at that section.
“Since taking office 10 months ago, I have been concentrating on cleaning our in-house and setting the foundations of our tax administration,” said Koim.
IRC has also terminated another officer who worked in the Debt Recovery Division (DLED) as a Manager. In 2019, the officer had printed out a consolidated statement of accounts for a taxpayer which was later used to extort money from the taxpayer.
Koim also revealed that 10 officers have been dismissed on tax fraud-related offenses and 25 are currently under investigation.
Koim further stated that IRC will also come down hard on fraudulent taxpayers and warned taxpayers to never forget that there would always be a transactional trail they would leave behind.
He also stated that things such as Certificate of Compliance, Tax Clearance Certificates, and TIN are free and taxpayers must not be charged any money.
He urged Taxpayers to follow the normal process of obtaining these certificates and not through shortcuts.
“IRC does not receive cash payments hence taxpayers and the public should not entertain any demand of cash payments,” says Koim.
“Taxpayers should weigh the gain from bribery against the cot of it if they are caught, before engaging in such illegal activities,” said Koim.
Taxpayers and the general public are urged to report any Tax Fraud and Criminal matters directly to IRC on TOLL-FREE 180 1472.
