October and November are hectic months for those employed by the civil service working in revenue bureaus throughout the country. It is tax season, with the deadline set on November 9th. For tax officials and taxpayers alike, it is a period to be dreaded. The seemingly unending queues in what are often cramped and stuffy rooms are testing the patience of many.

One patient taxpayer is Negash Nasir, who owns an import-export business involving mainly coffee and sesame. Since its incorporation five years ago, his company has paid taxes at the East Addis Abeba branch office of the Ministry of Revenues, on Equatorial Guinea St., in the Lem Hotel neighbourhood. In previous years, the scenes during the last days before the deadline were "disastrous", Negash recalled. He would spend several hours, often stretched out over days, among the large crowd lining up to pay their dues to the state.

This year, his experience was decidedly different. There were only a few people queued up at the tax office. Negash was not one of them.

The Ministry had introduced an online platform beginning last year. Taxpayers can declare revenues and settle their taxes remotely and at their convenience. Yet, not many took advantage of the virtual platform, and a few ended up processing their taxes online. This year, however, was a success.

Negash was one of the thousands of taxpayers who opted to go digital. He declared his business' financial statements online, paid his tax through the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), and received his receipts in an email attachment. He was one of the over 7,100 businesses registered in this branch that used the platform this time around. Only 186 taxpayers chose to complete the process in person.

"I'm only here for clearance," Negash told a tax officer during his brief visit to the branch office last week.

The simplicity and convenience is a glimpse into the potential of digitalisation in improving lives. But there are still issues to be worked out.

There exists a tendency among taxpayers to settle taxes at the last minute. Negash is guilty of this as well. He filed his taxes and paid only a few days before the deadline. He had been travelling, keeping his auditor from finalising the books earlier.

This is an excuse that Abraham Zewdi, head of an accounting firm that served over 50 taxpayers this year, hears often. Business owners and managers are often unavailable to process documents with the accounting professionals they hire.

“It's customary for businesses to run late in finalising documents,” said Abraham.

Many produce a few of the documents accountants require when tax season begins in July, then drag the process out while gathering the documents assuming they have ample time. Many end up paying their taxes late.

Addis Abeba has over 400,000 registered taxpayers organised into categories based on annual gross revenues and registered capital. Those with a turnover of over 40 million Br are in the "large taxpayers" group. Those with a capital of over one million Birr but revenues of less than 40 million Br are designated category "A" taxpayers. Businesses with less than half a million Birr in capital are "C" taxpayers.

The City's tax bureau has collected 23 billion Br over the first third of the fiscal year, with half the amount paid in October alone.

The Revenue Ministry's East Addis Abeba Branch Office, where Negash's business is registered, has around 10,000 taxpayers, and its officials had expected 8,650 of them to pay before the deadline. Less than 84pc of them did, shelling out 869 million Br. It represents over 30pc higher than what was reported last year but with no significant increase in the number of registered taxpayers.

"Some miss the deadline and then declare zero revenues," said Gezahegn Tamiru, manager of the Branch Office.

It is similar to the Addis Abeba Large Taxpayers' Branch Office in the Lancia neighbourhood. Of the 836 businesses registered as large taxpayers in the capital, around 614 settled their taxes before the deadline, paying an aggregate of 1.7 billion Br. Three-quarters of this amount was paid in the five days leading up to the deadline, disclosed Demissew Benti, communications director of the City Revenues Bureau.