The purpose of this study is to assess the crisis communication effort of Ethiopian Revenue and CustomsrnAuthority (ERCA) in addressing public grievances in response to the authority's recent assessment ofrnaverage daily and annual incomes of the business community in Addis Ababa and levy taxes accordingly.rnSituational Crisis Communication Theory of W. T Coombs is used to examine the crisis communicationrnactivity, response strategy of ERCA and the role played by the PR department of the authority inrnmitigating the crisis. Both qualitative and quantitative research approaches were employed to collect datarnfrom ERCA managers, public relations professionals and category "c" income tax payers to studyrnERCA's effort to handle the crisis. Eight respondents were interviewed and 383 category "c" income taxrnpayers were asked to fulfil questionnaire regarding the view of the tax payers toward ERCA's crisisrncommunication effort. The study found out that ERCA's crisis communications was generally weak andrnlacked sufficient preparation and prevention at the pre-crisis stage. The role played by PR in handling therncrisis appears to be limited. The public relations professionals were only drawn into the crisisrnmanagement process after the crisis had reached its peak and was fully realized. During the crisis stage,rncommunication problems created unfavorable situation between the tax payers and ERCA. Timely gettingrnaccurate information concerning the newly introduced tax collection system appeared to be a problem andrncreated confusion. At times conflicting messages were transmitted by different people in thernorganization. The poor implementation of crisis communication in the preparation stage affected thernprocess of handling the crisis situation throughout crisis and post crisis stages. Absence of properrnpreparation seemed to have resulted in fragmented communication techniques that were less effective.rnBased on study findings, recommendations are forwarded to ERCA as well as the business communityrnto prevent the crisis from escalating and to improve the organizational performance of ERCA towardsrnbuilding better public trust.