The Tax Authority will roll out on a trial basis its electronic tax filing system in April, ahead of making it mandatory for businesses to pay their taxes online “in the coming period,” according to a Tax Authority statement (pdf). The testing phase will see 100-120 companies with good records of paying their taxes, which the authority will select, file their taxes online, the local press reports, citing government sources. The authority intends to make electronic tax filing mandatory for all businesses once the testing phase is complete. The statement did not disclose the expected timeline for this process. A Tax Authority official had previously said online tax filing would become mandatory by mid-March.

Taxes will only be collected from one bank account: The authority is coordinating with the Central Bank of Egypt to ensure that, if an individual or business holds several bank accounts, their taxes are only collected from one of these accounts, authority head Reda Abdel Kader said, according to the local press.

Background: This is part of Egypt’s new unified digital tax payment system that Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said will be fully implemented by the end of the year, which would provide businesses with a single online system for filing and paying income tax, stamp tax and the value-added tax to streamline procedures and encourage informal businesses to go legit. The government expects to roll out a beta program for large-scale taxpayers before gradually expanding the system to encompass all tax payments. The Madbouly Cabinet greenlit the proposed legislation last year.