Seychelles Revenue administration receives technical assistance in auditing the Financial and Insurance sector

VICTORIA –  ATAF trained Seychelles Revenue Commission (SRC) audit staff to better audit the Financial & Insurance sectors as part of its ongoing focus to build the capacity of the continent’s tax administrations.

Approximately 20 audit staff from the SRC audit team received training to equip them with an in-depth understanding of banking & insurance activities in order to profile the risk factors from a tax administration perspective From 6-10 March. The training focused on:

• major revenue streams

• eexpenditure streams and provisions associated with the industry players & their tax treatment

• IFRS requirements, disclosures, and impact on profitability

• Identification of banking activities and their tax implications

• Determination of insurance taxable income

• Case studies

“We have seen a growing need for more industry specific technical assistance to our revenue administrations,” said Sameera Khan, ATAF Manager: Country Programs & Rapid Response.

“The global Financial Services sector - and more so Banking, Insurance, Trusts & Investment industries in general - have evolved rapidly over the past decade,” said Khan. “It is therefore critical that revenue administrators keep pace with these changing times to re-think and re-model their taxation strategies to remain relevant and improve our overall revenue collections.”

The response has been positive.

Anifa Rosalie, Auditor Large Audit Unit, described the session as “Informative and interactive”. She noted that the presentation gave an in-depth view of the banking and Insurance industry financial reports and what to look out for.

“The presenters provided good examples from their respective countries as well as personal experiences. Both were enjoyable and gave us the ease to discuss different situations as well as issues that arises from our audit cases,” said Rosalie. 

Audit manager Hansha Naiken expressed her thanks for the comprehensive nature of the programme: “The training on the financial sector has been undeniably informative, interactive, and (has) broaden our knowledge in terms of how to audit this particular sector.”

Auditor Kurt Adeline added that the group had “gained much knowledge on the risk associated and how to tackle audit that will arise. I can say that the moderators were truly experts in their field who have humble shared what they know.”

Intelligence officer Marvin Laposte said the training was detailed and relevant to his work “The strategies and risk identification was well explained, and I believe this training should have a continuation with the auditors.”

Auditor Douane Jean Louis noted: “What we have learned will have a direct impact on performance of audit procedures for the financial and insurance sector.”

The training is part of an ongoing initiative to support tax authorities.

“ATAF is very happy to support SRC in building their capacity to handle the audit of major financial sector players to increase revenue collections to finance the various socioeconomic activities of the Government,” said Khan.