This report has collected what little information is available about forest revenue collection in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It describes the general structure of taxation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which includes a large number of different taxes and fees collected by many different agencies. There are also a large number of different forest charges, including charges on: area; volume harvested; turnover; export sales; equipment and workers; and turnover.
In general, forest charges are quite low and the value of these charges has been eroded by inflation and changes in the currency used in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Currently, the total amount of forest revenue collected is probably around USD 1.5 million per year. The process for collecting charges is quite simple, but there is little follow-up and supervision and it is suspected that tax evasion is high. Charge collection is decentralised and many of the charges are collected by provincial authorities.
In terms of expenditure, there is a Fund for the Reconstitution of Forestry Capital, but the operation of the fund has been paralysed by the war. In addition to this, the Ministry for Land Affairs, Environment, Fishing and Forestry has an investment budget and operating budget from the central government. In 2000, the investment budget allocated to the ministry was around USD 10.9 million and the operational budget was USD 156,000. These two budgets account for five percent and 0.4 percent (respectively) of the total public expenditure on investment and operating costs.
The report highlights the strengths and weaknesses of each of the different forest charges currently used in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The main recommendations of the report are that the forest revenue system should be simplified; greater efforts should be made to follow-up and control tax evasion; greater attention should be paid to taxation of the informal forestry sector; and charges on the export of unprocessed products (logs) should be increased. However, improvements in financing the forestry sector will require an improvement in the general economic and security situation in the country.