ZIMRA surpasses revenue collection target

Zimbabwe’s tax agency says gross revenue collections in the quarter to September at $919 million surpassed the target of $917 million on the back of enhanced enforcement.

Taxes fund the southern African country’s entire budget after multilateral funders like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund said they would only resume lending if Harare clears debts to global lenders.

The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) today reported that the collections were up 6 percent compared to $866.96 million collected in the second quarter.

Net collections amounted to $854 million after deductions of VAT and Customs refunds.

Individual Tax and Excise duty were the major contributors of revenue at 23 percent and 19 percent respectively. VAT on Local Sales contributed 18 percent, while VAT on Imports contributed 10.51 percent.

Mining royalties only contributed two percent to total revenue during the quarter.

“The improved performance of VAT on Local Sales is attributable to automation, more enforcement and compliance checks and is expected to improve as compliance levels increase,” said Zimra chairperson Willia Bonyongwe said in a statement.

Bonyongwe said automation of the agency’s systems had “unearthed significant irregularities relating to those who under-declared their revenues, and those who were not even registered. Consequently 3 232 new taxpayers were registered and 106 cases were referred to audits.”

The tax debt remained flat at $2.6 billion with private business accounting for 77 percent of the amount owed. Councils and parastatals take up nine percent and 14 percent of the debt respectively.

“Vigorous debt follow-ups resulted in debt reduction in Individual Tax by 4 percent and Corporate Tax by 5 percent.”-The Source

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