Reforming tax administration is crucial to addressing poverty, reducing the education backlog and achieving acceptable health services, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said on Thursday.

Briefing the media in Pretoria Manuel said phenomenal strides had been made in improving services and revenue administration.

This had been in part due to the increase in taxes being collected from all South Africans.

"It is no longer a money problem," he said.

However should revenue run out, this would lead to borrowing from external resources which was not ideal.

Tax Africa

Earlier Manuel told the opening of the Tax Africa inaugural conference, that the challenges facing the continent included finding ways to escape the dependence on foreign assistance and indebtedness, and in many cases the unsustainable reliance on customs revenue.

Revenue administrations were an "indispensable condition" of this aim.

"The challenge is not simply to tax more, but rather to tax a larger number of citizens and enterprises more consensually," said Manuel.

Sapa

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