Luanda, Sept. 2, 2026 (Lusa) - Angola's General Tax Administration (AGT) has referred 35 cases of customs tax fraud to the judicial authorities this year, the head of the Investigation Department at the tax authority's Anti-Fraud Services Division announced on Wednesday.
Noémia Ido was speaking to the press on the sidelines of the launch of a training course on «Tax Fraud, Money Laundering and Corruption: Who, Where and How?», organised by the AGT in cooperation with the attorney general's office.
Regarding tax offences, Noémia Ido emphasised that these are not isolated incidents and are generally linked to other crimes, primarily money laundering.
She said that tax-related offences have also been identified, particularly those concerning Income Tax on Employment (IRT).
«This is the most common occurrence; we are aware of some companies that withhold tax but do not pay it to the State. It has also been happening with regard to VAT [Value Added Tax]; these are companies that unduly collect VAT and often do not pay it to the State,» she stressed.
At the opening of the event, the chair of the AGT, José Leiria, highlighted that, over the next two days, experts from the Angolan tax authorities and other institutions will deepen their understanding of these matters.
«We need to understand what tax fraud is as a crime, how we at AGT should act, how to work in coordination with the Public Prosecutor's Office, how the country's investigative bodies should approach these issues, and what aspects we should examine and analyse with greater attention and fairness,» he said.
Leiria emphasised that the crime of tax fraud undermines the state's ability to meet its expenditure, «because it leads to lower tax revenues», whilst the issue of corruption weakens the country and raises reputational challenges.
For his part, Angola's Attorney General, Pedro Mendes de Carvalho, emphasised that combating economic and financial crime requires technical expertise and close institutional cooperation.
He also considered that this initiative for judges, technical staff, investigators and specialists from different fields is an opportunity to pool knowledge, compare experiences, share best practice and strengthen cooperation between the institutions responsible for prevention, detection, investigation and accountability.
The aim of this training is to bring together all the bodies with responsibility in these areas to respond in a coordinated manner, improving the quality of information, intelligence-gathering and investigative procedures, thereby contributing to more comprehensive and better-substantiated cases to be referred to the courts, added Noémia Ido.
According to her, the greatest difficulty for practitioners lies in mastering these subjects, hence the cooperation with Portuguese specialists to train staff from the AGT, the Criminal Investigation Service, the public prosecutor's office and judges.
Carla Castelo Trindade, a lecturer at the Portuguese Catholic University, president of the tax arbitration tribunals and an AGT consultant on economic crime – one of the trainers on this Executive Masterclass – considered that Angola is making progress, but «there are many challenges ahead».
«There is enormous pressure, but Angola is committed and making progress with a very strong determination to show what it is capable of,» she emphasised, pointing out that the country has recently amended its money laundering law, and it is now necessary to «put the law into practice».
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