The Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) says tax revenue collections have in the last three years performed favorably against parliament target averaging at 4.2%.
In a presentation at a media training workshop organized by Actionaid Zambia in Lusaka today, ZRA senior economist for policy and coordination research and planning department Yenda Shamabobo says over the last three years, tax revenue to the gross domestic ratio has averaged at 16.2%.
Mr. Shamabobo says tax revenue has continued to be the major source of revenue averaging at 68.4% of the total budget during the last three years citing that between 2013 and 2014 government funding as a percent of revenue collected declined by 0.3%.
He adds that in 2014, mining tax revenue made up 11.8% of the total tax revenue collection adding that during the last 3 years, mining tax revenue has contributed an average of 14.6% to total tax revenue.
He further states that despite Tax revenues nominally growing over the recent past 3 years, exceeding there is still room for enhancing tax collections through broadening the tax net to capture even more entities especially those in the Informal Sector.
And ActionAid Zambia country director Pamela Chisanga says Zambia should position to itself to be a region of ending tax avoidance.
Ms. Chisanga says the country is not doing enough to plug the loopholes in tax collections adding that this is why it is the only country which has clear examples of tax avoidance and hence the need to change things around and be a pioneer of curbing tax avoidance.
She adds that the country is losing resources through tax avoidance stressing that these resources can be channeled to delivering services to the people of Zambia.
She has further urged investors to have the interest of the country at heart and pay fair taxes so that the country can benefit.
What parliament target?
This is an empty report by this so called economist Shamabobo. The national budget is presented in monetary figures and so should revenue collection. Of course percentages denote upward or downward trends, but they are useless when quoted without the base figures. What exactly is ZRA hiding? They don’t want us to know what came in so that we don’t know what they’ve stolen? I can’t see any other logical explanation… And these are supposed to be our nationally acclaimed economists?…….Cry me beloved Zambia!
Collection or extortion?