Student Tax ID Push Triggers Logjam

Sep 13 , 2025. By NAHOM AYELE ( FORTUNE STAFF WRITER ) , YITBAREK GETACHEW ( FORTUNE STAFF WRITER )

Yellow Aday Abeba flowers are blooming once more in Addis Abeba, heralding the New Year. But beyond the city’s familiar rhythm, a different kind of crowd has gathered. Young people in holiday clothes queue at revenue bureaus, each hoping to secure a taxpayer identification number (TIN) before university classes resume, reports NAHOM AYELE & YITBAREK GETACHEW, FORTUNE STAFF WRITERS.

The yellow flush of Aday Abeba flowers has returned to Addis Abeba, heralding the arrival of the Ethiopian New Year. In streets criss-crossed by horse-drawn carriages and honking minibuses, the familiar sounds of "Krar" and "Mesenqo" mingle with the chatter of families bargaining for holiday chickens or fresh "berbere." Yet, alongside the hum of celebration lies a quieter hum of edginess.

At district revenue bureaus across the city, queues of young people spill into the heat, backpacks tugged over holiday clothes, waiting for a piece of paper they barely understand.

At the KolfeQeranyo Branch, Barnabas Degefu looks out of place among the taxpayers clutching balance sheets. He has finished a remedial programme and is due to begin his first year at Haramaya University, but he and thousands like him have been ordered to secure a taxpayer identification number (TIN) before classes resume. Three days and counting into his bureaucratic tour, he sighed.

“I don’t really know why I need it,” he said, after another fruitless morning. “I just opened it because it’s mandatory. Without it, they won’t let us back.”

The Ministry of Revenue announced that a national ID, christened as "Fayda", would suffice. At the counter, officials asked instead for a local (kebele) residence card. When he tried to get one, local authorities told him he was too young.

“One bureau asks for something I cannot get, while the other insists I bring it," he told Fortune. "It makes no sense.”

A few metres behind him, Seleshi Beyene shuffled forward. A third-year agribusiness student at Hawassa University, he was expected to return to campus by September 20, 2025. The deadline looms, but clarity is scarce.

“I haven’t received clear information, either from the university or the Ministry,” he said.

Rainclouds were gathering over his holiday mood. Each day, revenue officers register more than 100 applicants, yet only a handful leave with a number. The seasonal cheer of "Enkutatash" has been overtaken by the anxiety of queues.

The order comes from the Ministry of Revenue, which insists every student joining one of the public universities should hold a TIN before they show up at the gate. The authorities believe it is a long-overdue fix to the higher-education cost-sharing scheme.

“This has no other purpose but to keep track of students,” Dereje Fana, director of taxpayer registration and services, told Fortune. “It gives us the capacity to collect cost-sharing once the students enter the work world.”

Universities will soon link these numbers to national IDs; registration remains free, and new TINs should be processed within a week. In theory.

Cost sharing was introduced in the first half of the 2000s, allowing the government to expand universities without footing every Birr of the bill. Students cover food, lodging and at least 15pc of tuition. After graduation, they repay through a “graduate tax,” 10pc of salary for up to 15 years. The paper chain that follows them from campus to workplace passes first through university alumni offices, which dispatch soft and hard copies of graduate lists to revenue headquarters.

Some graduates pay immediately, while others wait until they receive their credentials. Doctors and teachers can settle their debt in service deployed in public hospitals or schools. Degree certificates remain locked in university drawers until a “revenue clearance” slip is produced, while temporary certificates expire after two years.

However, Malebo Mancha (PhD), alum director at Arba Minch University, has seen students turn up a decade late. This year, Arba Minch handed back 1,900 original documents, up from 1,500 the year before.

Poor record-keeping and patchy enforcement have long plagued the scheme. A study by the Forum for Social Studies (FSS) found many private employers simply ignore the deduction rules, letting graduates slip through the net. By welding a TIN to every student file, officials hope to tighten that net and relieve a treasury stretched by spiralling enrolment. Public-university intake exploded from over 100,000 in 2005 to more than 800,000 by 2018, while graduation lagged behind.

In 2017/18, about 160,000 new students enrolled, but only 70,000 emerged with graduation gowns. Roughly 40pc of graduates, especially in the humanities and social sciences, fail to land a job within a year, a mismatch that leaves the repayment pot half-empty.

According to Malebo, the Ministry of Revenue has never formally consulted universities on the new TIN drive.

Outside the student crowd, the knock-on effects are unkind.

Alema Tadese, a 31-year-old civil engineer, needed a TIN to upgrade his professional licence and sign a new contract. After two weeks in limbo, he has nothing to show for it because the bureau is serving students first.

“It should take only three days to get a TIN," he said. "It’s taking three weeks, and there’s still nothing.”

Alema's plans and clients drift while he waits.

“I fear that if my clients can’t wait for me," he told Fortune. "I’ll lose them.”

The directive has collided with the busiest moment of the fiscal calendar, which is the annual tax-payment season. Desks already swamped by business owners are now besieged by young men and women clutching photocopied ID cards.

The Addis Abeba Public Service Bureau has mandated overtime and extended office hours, but the stopgap offers little relief. A staff member at the Qera Bureau, who requested not to be identified, described an unrelenting tide.

“Everyone wants service, even during lunchtime,” he said. “What can we do? We've to leave them, otherwise we can’t work properly.”

ErmiyasAngoulo serves as the director of the Bureau in Kolfe Qeranyo. He conceded to an “immense strain” where network glitches crippled the first days of registration; then the numbers exploded. More than 400 students signed up in one day alone. To speed things along, three of his five service windows are now devoted to students, and clerks pre-screen documents in the corridor. Contrary to Barnabas’s experience, Ermiyas confirmed that national or local IDs were accepted there.

“We're instructed to give them priority,” he told Fortune.

But, the burden was obvious as students from all the 11 woredas under the district converged on his counters.

“We can’t do that at the District level because there’s a high number of students,” said Ermias.

The pressure landed as the federal tax-to-GDP ratio heads the other way, tumbling from 12.4pc in 2014/15 to 7.5pc in 2022/23, one of the lowest figures in sub-Saharan Africa. Federal authorities hope to finance 1.2 trillion Br of the current budget through domestic revenue. Every new taxpayer, student or otherwise, is part of this arithmetic. Nonetheless, the extra revenue clerks are working from offices that have not grown in line with the population they serve.

Biruk Nigussie, a tax expert who once worked at the Ministry of Revenue, believes the upheaval is a price worth paying.

“Cost sharing is a debt," he said. "A debt must be paid.”

The reform could end the “chaotic process” that forces graduates to scramble for clearance whenever they need official documents. Biruk argued that manual paperwork would soon disappear, while in the long term, the state should station revenue officers in regional universities, allowing students to leave campus with a TIN in hand, thereby preventing the current rush. The law already exists to collect deductions once a graduate is employed.

"What has been missing is consistent enforcement," said Biruk. “If it’s implemented now like it was back then, it will prevent congestion.”

While banks handle deductions effectively, some private companies ignore the rules.

"The Revenue Ministry itself doesn't push this," he said. "It has a strict law that requires all parties to pay when they start work."

PUBLISHED ON Sep 13,2025 [ VOL 26 , NO 1324]