The Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) in Kitwe distict on the Copperbelt has rejected the business community’s appeal to extend the tax amnesty to December 31st, 2017.
This after the business community in the area appealed to the authority to extend the exercise to December 31st , 2017.
The tax amnesty which comes to an end on July 31st this month allowed tax payers an obligation with ZRA without being subjected to penalties.
ZANIS reports that ZRA Assistant Director Tax Payer Services Deborah Bwembya says his Authority will not extend the period because the tax payers had been given adequate time to settle their debts.
“Unfortunately we won’t extend the period, we have taken note of your appeal but we had given you enough time to settle all your queries but you did not do that,” she said.
She said this during a stakeholders review meeting held at Edinburgh hotel in Kitwe on Friday.
Ms. Bwembya said there was,therefore, need to change the mindset for clients on the compliance to paying tax to allow the smooth flow of business.
“ The authority has observed that there was much reliance on tax agents by the business community who sometimes did not know what to do therefore delaying the process at the authority, ‘’ she said.
Ms. Bwembya said the system was also flooded and needed to ensure that they ease pressure to allow everyone benefit from the tax amnesty hence the need to avoid sending agents that had no idea of the procedure.
The Director also added that poor tax compliance by the clients had led to huge penalties because of late payment hence they can lobby for a reduction from the community.
“Some of you have magnitude of payments because you never used to pay, you don’t comply to the tax payment and you end up blaming us,” she said.
She has since emphasized that ZRA will work with anyone in tax administration adding that the Authority remains eager to listen and hear the concerns raised.
Kitwe District Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KDCCI) president Allan Nyirenda says the Tax amnesty policy had positively brought in a lot of tax awareness among the business community.
Mr. Nyirenda says the industry was happy with the initiative by ZRA to impact more knowledge to the clients so as to improve their business skills in the business sector.
“We are happy for this initiative from ZRA it has really given a positive impact on the business community to give them awareness and knowledge on tax and tax amnesty,” he said.
Funny thing is we see zra abusing small local businesses for amounts of tax that cannot be compared to the huge tax Multi corporation are avoiding paying in Zambia. Just because these foreign companies oil lungus pockets he instructs zra to turn blind eye. Meanwhile abuse the small business because pf needs that money for personal party business. The lightening that will strike state house and pf buildings is still doing press ups.
The State should extend the amnesty to at least up to the end of September. More people will pay and the coffers will be increased if they extend it. Now if you just want to punish people for the sake then both Zra and the tax payer will be losers. The amnesty has allowed Zra to collect record amounts more than they normally do so why not extend it???? – I can assure you more people will even pay if they extend it to September.
The Mines have not being paying full taxes for so many years so Zra be fair! Don’t kill the small businesses just because you want to make a point. Give them more time, a lot of congestion etc at Zra, a lot of misinformation has caused delays.
ZRA has to extend to 31/12/2017 since they have not finished attending to all tax payers on queue seeking tax amnesty. Unless they say that they have attended to all tax payers who have responded to the call and have issued them with the much needed tax clearance certificates for them to do business. They should announce how many tax clearance certificates they have issued, not just money collected. Many tax payers are still unattended to because of ZRA go slow attitude to process applications, congestion at offices and website, poor internet connectivity by internet service providers. How will small businesses do business minus tax clearance certificates which they have been denied for decades to raise money to pay ZRA?
ZRA please consider extending up to December 2017
Stop being petty and extend amnesty to poor business payers
Comment: right now am at ZRA too many people, the website is down we can’t access it,so issues that have been raised on our applications can’t be attended to via internet