The Centre for Trade Policy and Development (CTPD) has urged parliamentarians to ensure that there is adequate legislation with current challenges in the mining sector.
CTPD Executive Director Isabel Mukelabai has told Qfm news in an interview that there is need to have adequate laws to deal with aggressive tax planning by mining companies and curb practices such as transfer mispricing and general illicit financial outflows.
Ms. Mukelebai notes that Zambia’s current legislation does not effectively deal with aggressive tax planning by multinational companies operating in the country.
Ms. Mukelabai adds that currently the Zambia revenue authority (ZRA) has inadequate capacity to monitor production and quality of mineral being produced.
She stresses that this is the reason why the Zambia Revenue Authority cannot effectively collect mineral royalty from the mines.
Ms. Mukelabai notes that comparing revenue collection from the mining sector under the income tax with personal income tax collected from payee, they see that ordinary citizens are paying more than mining companies which raises issues of equity.
Zambia is disappointing in everything !!
God deliver us !!
First of all, that Zambian Parliament is too dark. Need more lights, and please ask those black-people to wear white, to be seen, can’t recognize any of those useless MPs.
What is needed, is to nationalize any corporation that does not pay it’s taxes.
Taxes need to be much higher.
This can be achieved by removing all mining taxes, and replacing them with the windfall tax, lowering the taxable bracket from $2,50 per pound, to $2,00 per pound.
That is effective taxation of the mines.
Bwana! wat do u mean wen u say remove all mining taxes and replacing them with windfall taxes? Do u really know wat windfall tax is. Ikalenifye
” Do u really know wat windfall tax is. Ikalenifye ”
Very much so.
$/pound taxrate%
2.50-3.00 25% = 0.50×0.25 = 0.125
3.00-3.50 50% = 0.50×0.50 = 0.25
3.50-4.00 75% = 0.50×0.75 = 0.375
So if the price of copper is $4.00 per pound, taxes paid are 0.75 per pound.
I would lower the tax bracket to $2.00 and start at 50% and more to 100%.
Our useless MP’s won’t do much because they are in the pockets of these companies for financing campaigns.Lobbyists are all over our cheaply bought MP’s.
It bothers nobody in this country that individuals contribute more to national treasury than corporate entities. This is so because payroll systems cannot be manipulated by selfish officers within ZRA while incorrect income tax returns are accepted for a “tip” without any thorough audit. I will say it again because I have said it before at various fora. ZRA could be collecting less than 50% of the taxes due to internally aided fraud. This has nothing to do with inadequate capacity.
If they can’t do the job then, why keep them in those jobs? The ZRA governing board should to act now.
May be a case of wrong people in right positions and right people in wrong position, it can be difficult to come up with right answers. They are visciouly planning and actually taking away our cake, we just look at it, then scramble for crumbs. It is laughable, Lol.
What we as stakeholders don’t know is that some of these corporations in Zambia may have signed developmental agreements secretly with our present and past govts with clauses in them to keep tax as it is. There is need for creative and progressive thinking on this issue…let the technocrats and tax experts balance the interests of state and business as politicians have LAMENTABLY FAILED us and its costing us dearly.
Our MPs be it PF or MMD or UPND are all the same just greedy selfish individuals more interested in increasing their gratuity and sitting allowances. Its high time a live web feed was installed in that house so we see what our MPs get up to.
Our members of parliament wakeup, there is a Lot of tax evasion in mining industries. Try to solve this tax issue before wage increase you re crying for, actually we are very disappointed why cant wait for 2 years wage freeze. Are you fearing that you won’t bounce back in the house after 2 years you were just making making these laws alone just abide bana Mugala?
Like in the case of the mines, just increase loyalty tax to 10%, you will have sorted them out. The issue of income tax on profits will ALWAYS be a problem to the govt. Secondly, introduce output vat on copper sales, Zambia will be the richest country in the Africa! Currently copper sales are zero rated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Increasing mineral royalty tax even to as high as 15% will not result in increased taxes because mineral royalty is “tax deductible” meaning the amount paid as mineral royalty will have to be deducted before you arrive at a figure (taxable income)upon which 30% tax rate is applied. In other words the more you increase mineral royalty tax, the more you reduce corporate income tax.
The other option of introducing output vat on copper sales may well be the solution for increased taxation on mines because even at 8% vat for copper sales to the tune of 800,000Mt at a price of $7,000 per ton would result in $448 million additional revenue.
WHY IS THE INSIDE OF OUR PARLIAMENT DARK AS IF IT WAS AT A NIGHT CLUB?
DO WE EXPECT LIGHT OUT OF DARKNESS?
THE ENVIRONMENT AFFECTS THE WAY YOU THINK AND DECIDE.
They get a lot if sweeteners from these investment companies. They never look nor understand the contracts they are negotiating either deliberately or with agreement to share in the illicit gains. Gov’t of Zambia is the enemy of its subjects; they are aggressive bandits out for everything they can get with no mercy for their citizen.