Johannesburg - Online digital assistant TaxTim is extending into Africa after notching up 500 000 South African registered users who use the service to help submit their tax returns.
The TaxTim service went live on Monday, June 1 in Namibia in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the country.
TaxTim is an online assistant that answers users’ “plain language questions” about their tax returns. The online system in turn intends helping its users avoid tax return penalties and maximise their chances of getting a refund.
TaxTim’s move to target Namibia comes as the country has similarities to South Africa, says one of the business’s founders.
“Namibia being very similar to South Africa and with about 25% of the population paying tax we thought it an excellent market to begin our expansion into the rest of Africa,” Marc Sevitz, a director at TaxTim, told Fin24.
“With Namibia still completing manual paper returns we were excited to offer our online solution to automate their process,” Sevitz added.
TaxTim is also looking to other markets in Africa.
“We have Africa as a whole in our sites, but in the medium term we are looking at Kenya, Ghana, Botswana, Rwanda and of course Nigeria,” Sevitz said.
Meanwhile, in South Africa, Sevitz said the TaxTim service reaches 1.3 million people who make use of at least one of TaxTim’s services ranging from submitted tax returns, calculators to a helpdesk.