About ARD

Afghanistan Revenue Department

The Afghanistan Revenue Department (ARD) is responsible for the administration and collection of tax and non-tax revenue for the Government of Afghanistan. The revenue is used to fund public infrastructure, including the construction of roads, schools, and health facilities, and to provide social services, including health and education. In addition, the revenue is used to fund Government functions.
During the past ten years, with the support of the international donor community, considerable gains have been made by the ARD in its ability to collect tax revenue. These efforts include a wide range of reforms and restructuring within the ARD, particularly the segmentation of taxpayers into Large, Medium and Small offices and the roll-out of these offices to regional provinces.
Professionalization of the tax service is a key priority for the ARD. This includes reorganizing the Tashkeel (civil servant staff) based on simplified and improved business processes. In addition, it includes computerizing tax functions, which will support ARD’s efforts to streamline business processes and maintain accurate tax records. Moreover, computerizing tax functions can reduce the potential for corruption. As part of its computerization program, the ARD has implemented the Standard Integrated Government Tax Administration System (SIGTAS) to automate current processes.
Regional tax reforms are an important means to increase revenue. Large and Medium Taxpayers Offices have been established in five regional locations, and two additional regional locations will be added. When the Large and Medium Taxpayer Offices (MTO) were introduced in Kabul revenue increased significantly. At present, tax officials in provinces report to the Mustofi, while in the future they will report directly to the ARD. This change will aid in the development of accurately costed revenue and budget forecasts.
The ARD has implemented human resource, automation, process simplification and risk-based compliance reforms to improve taxpayer services and enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the ARD. In the future the ARD plans to introduce a Value Added Tax (VAT), which is now in effect in neighboring countries.

Vision
Creating Volunteer Compliance culture based on self-assessment for the honest taxpayers.
Providing professional and responsive services through expert staff.

Mission
Providing high-quality services in coordination with taxpayers for their awareness, in order that they have fulfilled their responsibilities and the income tax law (ITL) is implemented impartially and properly.

Our Business Objectives
Based on the income tax law 2009, ARD wishes to change tax deal between the taxpayers and tax takers (ARD staff) through ongoing investment for the following steps:
ARD wishes to create compliance culture through self-assessment and honest taxpayers. This will help taxpayers to fulfill their tax responsibilities, pay their due amount of tax on time, save their time and avoid tax penalties.
By professional and good staff, ARD render good services to the taxpayers, and through these services, they can address the requirements of the taxpayers and help them.

Our Commitments
We will:
•    Provide taxpayers with simple, efficient, and cost effective means of making tax returns and paying remittances.
•    Find ways to make the tax system work better and to make voluntary compliance simpler, faster, and cheaper for all taxpayers.
•    Behave in an honest, fair, and open manner through our policies and activities.
•    Deliver an excellent service.
•    Be responsive and sensitive to our clients’ needs and feedback.
•    Carefully safeguard taxpayers’ money and confidential information.
•    Recognize and reduce revenue risk.