Officials of the Addis Abeba Finance Bureau have warned sector institutions and district offices against issuing withholding tax receipts without their approval, arguing that doing so violates the revenue administration system in place.

Beginning next week, the Bureau will distribute printed revenue-collection and withholding-tax receipts to institutions, an intervention intended to restore order and keep receipt issuance within what officials describe as the proper supervisory channel.

That warning follows confusion created by the rollout of a new QR-coded receipt system introduced in December last year. The latest tax receipt dispute lays bare the strains of a hurried administrative transition, in which a city finance bureaucracy is trying to reassert chain-of-command control. A federal revenue modernisation drive is pushing QR-coded compliance, and a printing monopoly is struggling to keep up with demand.

At issue is not only who prints withholding and revenue-collection receipts, but also who governs accountability when a tax system is being rebuilt in real time. According to officials at the Ministry of Revenue, the reform is part of an effort to modernise tax administration, improve transparency, provide secure documentation for taxpayers, reduce fraud, and strengthen the fight against tax evasion. The new receipts are supposed to make tax compliance more traceable and harder to manipulate.

But the reform has collided with operational reality. The state-owned Berhanena Selam Printing Enterprise remains the sole producer of the new receipt pads, creating a bottleneck in a rapidly expanding system. The Enterprise initially committed to printing 700,000 QR-coded pads. Demand later surged, lifting the target to 2.5 million pads and stretching production capacity. Of the 291,435 taxpayers who ordered the new pads, 289,291 have received them, leaving 2,144 still waiting.

That pressure is no longer confined to the 347,000 taxpayers registered in the city in 2025. In Addis Abeba, the rollout extends across 11 districts, 119 woredas, and more than 130 sector bureaus expected to adopt the new format. As mandatory compliance widened, so did the risk of administrative confusion. Under the directive governing receipt use and administration, the Addis Abeba Finance Bureau is mandated to oversee revenue collection receipts used by city bureaus, while the Revenue Bureau supervises withholding and VAT receipts.