Friday, March 29, 2024

ZRA appoints agents for collection of rental income tax

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ZRA Headquarters
ZRA Headquarters

The Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) has appointed Sherwood Greene as agents for collection of tax on rental income for commercial and domestic properties in Lusaka and Copperbelt.

Tax payments will be made directly to ZRA while, Sheerwood Greene together with ZRA will conduct door to door inspections in Lusaka and the Copperbelt in order to collect proof of payments for withholding Tax on Rent due to ZRA.

The appointment of Sherwood Greene Properties Ltd as tax agents comes after the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Margret Mwanakatwe on 15 June, 2018 signed into law the Statutory Instrument number 48 of 2018 for the appointment of tax collection agents.

This follows the amendment of the Income Tax Act Cap 323 of the Laws of Zambia to allow the Commissioner General to appoint tax agents to collect base tax, presumptive tax, turnover tax and tax on rental income.

Recently Zambia National Marketeers Credit Association (ZANAMACA) was also appointed as tax agents for base tax.

The Zambia Revenue Authority will soon issue another advertisement to invite eligible entities to apply to be tax agents so that there are more entities participating.

“We trust that these new initiatives will broaden the tax base, create employment opportunities lower the cost of tax collection, and compliance cost. Tenants and landlords are encouraged to quickly register by visiting the website www.zra.org.zm and make payments to avoid being inconvenience when they are visited,” ZRA Corporate Communications Manager Topsy Sikalinda said.

81 COMMENTS

  1. It wondering work with me. I paid tax during my working days so why should I continue paying. On this one I am ready to go to jail or even gallows. In my last 5 working life I paid an average of 8,000 kwacha per month. Isn’t that not enough to be left alone?

    • @Sherwood Green start arranging your own funerals. Stay in Chawama, don’t come to my village, wiso never helped me to reach where am.
      If you love your families, then let PF do the tax theft alone.
      I was not involved in your loan scandals, so why should you come and steal on behalf of PF?

    • Zambians can be a funny bunch indeed! Govt fails to capture a large segment of the economic base, the same people moan and complain about how Govt is inept and ineffective in broadening the tax base. The come up, for the first time in our history, with initiatives to DO EXACTLY WHAT WE HAVE BEEN CRYING FOR FOR A LONG TIME NOW, we still come off as people unsure of what we want.

      Having lived in the U.S.A for a while now where paying tax is inescapable (just like death,) reading some of the comments here makes you very sad and laugh at the same time. If you want to understand why Americans have coined such phrases as “DEATH TAX,” try to look at the U.S tax code you will understand why. Not what you complaining about here!

    • Look at Yambayamba as usual trying very hard to defend the Ruling Party filled with his MMD colleagues…no one is saying tax is wrong, if you go to countries like Norway they put tax on everything and tax is 42.2% of the gross domestic product (GDP) but guess what? Front-line services are second to none with the best health care and welfare in the world….in Zambia its just the opposite lack of transparency, accountability and appalling service delivery. I mean you have a reckless govt that is happy to use $42 million to procure 42 firetrucks at a whooping $1million …trucks that cost a mere $250,000.

    • The PF mother fckers led by Edgar Lungu are now fcking everyone else! They borrowed heavily and stole the money and now they want everyone pay back the debt for the money they stole.
      After paying Income Tax; our people have to pay Rent Tax; and pay Road Tax for the car they drive; and pay Toll taxes for the Road they drive on; and pay VAT on the clothes they buy; and pay Borehole Tax for the water they drink; and very soon PF Lungu will be collecting VAT from prostitutes for the illegal services.
      This is the price of voting for Lungu and his PF but Lungu, Rupiah and Chikwanda want you to be seeing tribe when you are being abused like this. Stupid Zambians!

    • Let Vipuba vi PF pay to ZRA.

      Did NYOKO contribute a single brick to my houses?
      Did WISO contribute a single nail to my flats?

      Come. We will lynch you ba pompwe. You’ve failed to tax tu ma Chinese or Lebanese, now you want to punish locals for your economic mismanagement. STYOPET PF00Lish MAKAKAZ.

    • I said it that PF will soon tax you for the air you breath because they have plundered all the money it borrowed and now failing to pay back.

      Dununa reverse in gear. We shall see how this pans out. The same PF *****s will caught out and hit hard on this poll tax.

      Lungu needs to be removed by force now before its too late.

    • It’s now a question of when and not if the breathing TAX will come to help finance DUNUNA REVERSE. Is this ECL’s austerity or chipantepante in action. ZAMBIA NEEDS RE-COLONISATION. The country has been due for a long time now.

    • @Jay Jay, this is where your blind hate for the Govt makes you sound empty and Intellectually bankrupt. Who told you that YOU CAN’T WALK AND CHEW GUM AT THE SAME TIME?

      Tax collection and broadening the domestic tax base does NOT mean you shouldn’t hold electeded officials and Govt in check for the way they spend tax payers’ money! YOU CAN DO BOTH, you I’d!ot! And nowhere have I said Govt should not behave responsibly with taxes. What we are talking about here is BROADENING THE TAX BASE IN OUR COUNTRY. A burden which, for a long time, has only been felt by those in formal employment, mainly civil servants. And your blind hate for Lungu thinks this is just fine. Lord helps us!

    • Yambayamba – There is no need to steam like a little rusty tea kettle on a cooking brazier …why then are comparing to the US which has broader tax base yet prudently serves its citizens…something that these reckless empty tins of yours are unable to do in this govt without stealing. As for Edgar Lungu he is merely a figurehead; glad to have a title of H.E and pointless travel….just an utterly lazy bum in State House with zero work ethic who has a voracious appetite for begging without shame.

    • @Jay Jay: How about showing some courtesy to other bloggers and their opinions if you expect the same in return. Don’t demand courtesy from others when you yourself have none. I am no MMD, PF, UPND, UNIP, or any of the other miniture political parties you keep insisting I am. And your insistence on labeling people whose views or comments you disagree with makes you exactly what I have called you; AN !D!OT….and I mean exactly that.

      Now, you Mr. Genius don’t even realize the fact that you contradicting yourself in your frenzied comments just to appear as though you saying something sensible or noteworthy. Look, Norwagians or Americans did not just have the Tax systems they have as a gift from God. Nor did they, by a fluke of nature, get honest politicians to preside over their tax…

    • Continue…

      monies. I am sure they worked very hard to clean up and expand their tax systems and then hold their politicians accountable if they misuse their taxes….this did just happen by accident. Nor did they achieve this by just burning off steam on the Internet….it takes work and not feel-good insults online.

      You are the same people who want roads to your rental properties or businesses paved, yet you don’t want to pay rental/business taxes. So where do you suggest Govt should get the money to pave the streets/roads from? You don’t want them to get loans either, so help me here! Because Govt does not GROW MONEY on trees. It has to come from somewhere.

      Those Norwagians gladly pay their taxes and then turn around and DAMAND THE BEST from their elected officials…

    • Continue….

      That’s how you do things….and there you are admiring their health care system and everything else.

      Now, suggest something sensible how to go about implementing this tax collection program than just spouting off for the sake of it.

    • Another PUBLIC crime.
      What a scandal. Mwati Zambia calo anymore?
      Send those thieves and money rapist at my property, I will give them PF tattoos.
      Why has Miles Sampa failed to collect LOCAL taxes?

    • Ndanje Khakis:They have over-spent on the budget but still there are arrears on payments to contractors and suppliers. So where has the money they have over-spent gone? Are Zambians too dumb to ask this simple question?

  2. Chingola’s Chiwempala Market Gutted
    No! Can Parliament please provide leadership in establishing what is the cause of so many fires in a short space of time. We need an objective bases for our conversation on how we move forward in protecting lives and property, particularly in these circumstances.

    • The owner of sherwood is Mr Raymond Chileshe Musonda from CBU. This one you don’t need to worry about the owner of the company. The question is how are they going to collect the funds from members of public where there’s no record as to owns the property or properties.

    • @kateule, people pay land rates, zesco bills, water bills, who do you think they have registered on the property ? Ministry of Lands, Municipal council have names of people who own various property. We pay land rates.
      My stomach is rumbling.

    • The Sherrif from Sherwood was known for his corrupt dealings and false taxcollections, untill a certain Robin Hood came and took the money back for the people.

  3. Our people are going to have sleepless nights with these id.io.ts banging their dirty hands on our doors. Why did we have for independence if we are going to be subjected to the same or even worse harassment from our own government for the peanuts we get in our retirement ages.
    Lungu has stolen more money than the total amount of money to be realised from Rent Tax. Why cant they put more resources to deter thieves like Lungu from stealing instead of resourcing people to harass us and our ageing parents.
    UPND is going the reverse this particular Tax which is the same as Poll Tax which was sending our forefathers to be spending nights in the bush before out independence.

  4. As for me, unless they come after 19 hours, i leave home @ 06 and return after 19 hours. If they force themselves in, my vicious dogs will deal with them.

    • All they have to do is monitor your TPIN for your account’s rental credits cross check with ministry of lands and give you a hefty backdated bill…you will soon be rushing to their offices.

    • Good if you have dogs because PF are dogs themselves. So dogs will be dealing with dogs and that is the language PF understands because they are dogs too.

  5. The squeeze is now on …they have caused a mess in public finances now they want to patch up and the taxpayer is even going to squeezed tighter,just wait for the next budget (2019) with all these reckless overruns.
    And some lazy President has the audacity to declare public holiday without shame.

  6. When i was building the house I was paying PAYE and all the building material were taxed. Now again the government wasntsme to pay tax on my property. After retiring Napsa are paying me peanuts after getting my money for years and this house is the one am depending on then you come again ati lets share. What type of government is this which wants to see its people suffer at all cost.

  7. You people always make laugh. You did the DUNUNA very well, now its time for you to
    get DUNUNAD you start complaining. Muzamuziba yesu.

  8. these are they people you voted for (some of you).
    and some of you f ools are fixin to vote for them again
    wake up and reclaim what’s rightfully yours.
    you’ll not change anything via forums like this and mere rhetoric. you need to start getting involved and question your local and state representatives. ask tough questions. these guys now have a free pass addressing people who ain’t as enlightened as most of you on this and many other Zambian platforms.
    it’s only by voting that you’ll be able to advance your calls.
    if you decide to stay home cuz it’s too much of a hustle and inconvenience to go out and vote, then don’t come on such platforms and bi tch
    granted politicians will always be politicians, they’ll still do whatever the h ell they want, but you’ll put in office…

  9. When some of us are here complaining about overpriced projects like the AVIC’s $286 million Mongu-Kalabo bridge road or the non existent completion date on the Chingola-Solwezi road or the $1.2 billion Ndola- Lusaka carriageway …its not because we detest the govt, its because these projects are inflated because of corruption, lack of efficient systems, flawed tender and procurement system. All these costs are passed on to us the taxpayers. …one way or another you will pay for this cancer if you think you are smart like Fred Meembe because your friend Michael is the President you will pay more later.
    So don’t just dance and sonta sonta …wake up!!

    • its time to pack our bags sell your houses and do business elsewhere Zambia is too costly to stay in and do business.

    • chola – Land is a very precious commodity you go on sell your land in Zambia (to a Chinaman) and then try buying land in another country as a foreigner ..tell us how you get on with that!!

    • Zambians are the most foo.lish and st.upid people on this earth. Only last week they were celebrating with PF for winning the Mayoral and other foo.lish elections. These are the same people that voted PF without knowing why they VOTED PF except Tribe! Fast forward 7 days after that Bang, PF introduces ba Kamuchekas who will be collecting Rent Tax and everyone is crying foul.
      Then you wonder if they have any brains or NOT – why did they vote for the same people they are condemning today? They were even saying PF will rule for ever and HH taka teke po! How more stupid Zambians is beyond humanity. True Lungu and PF will continue FCKG them only because of their TRIBE!!

  10. Manje so?,,,,chashupa,, As late President Chiluba said tuchulapafula! and when he became President he and Ba Lupiya Banda sold houses to sitting tenants in the mines and councils and legalised land that was occupied by squatters for them to build houses.There no Jobs around in town all what people do are piece works while surviving on a little rental income which does not make ends meet at all.Is this what they called lower taxes and more money in your pockets Zambians voted for?

    • Lelo lwanya. That evil vampire Menomeno Lungu, Rupiah and Chikwanda are fckg you all and teaching a good lesson voting PF! You want him to stand illegally in 2021 so he can continue fckg until you drop dead!! How are you going to live when he is collecting the little rent income you have been living on from your sharks!

  11. I am afraid, this can’t possibly work. How do I identify an agent and under what legal standing. Basically this opens an opportunity for criminals harassing citizens. No need to lose any breath over this. It will fall flat on its face like poll tax that MMD called base tax. Try Chimwemwe to collect such taxes. There are enough vicious dogs.

  12. How about in the case that the house is owned by “senior citizen” who as at now recieves K1000 per month as pension and has that same house being targeted giving him K800 to sustain his own life and that of his grand children, shall this pro poor Government Tax him???? I have in mind a former GRZ employee born around 1924 and has one house for rent at his premises and only receives about K600 and depends largely on the rent for his survival. What is ZRA saying?

  13. Sherwood Green will be sued for defamation of character if they adopt this path. A TAX agent is agent for collection. Not to ask questions and for information.

    It is different if I owed taxes and Sherwood Green had my money and collected the tax on behalf of ZRA. But an agent has no statutory powers to even ask one question.

    Consult your lawyer, tax advisor, accountant or other professional advisor.

    From the ZRA position it is an attempt to delegate functions they don’t have a statutory right to do so. An extreme view may argue that it is dereliction of duty.

  14. Debt-ridden government has failed the people of Zambia and now wants to tax the poor retirees who are making meagre income from rentals.Tubeleleniko uluse twapapata.We already pay property and ground rents please

  15. You guys you want to pay back the loan you got through poor people sure if you know how it cost to build a house you cant even step in some body’s yard. Other wise careful.

  16. There has to be a rethinking of how the WHT or TURNOVER tax on Rental Income will have to be administered and assessed It can be a blanket 10% on Gross Rentals Such things like use-age,ground rates ,agency costs or management costs must be allowable for landlords well invested to continue maintaining their premises as a continued tax base for ZRA otherwise there will be deterioration and foreclosures resulting from un-affordable rental costs for prospective rental customers and diminished income base for property maintenance as a result o non allowable expenses Ten tenants do come and go and some may fail to pay an occupancy may not be at 100% for yearly…

  17. Then appointment of those tax agents on the buy and sell sides may raise a lot issues and questions in the long run for ZRA as many of those agents may not act in good faith and simply be motivated by the need to foreclose a poor-mans premises especially that the land once they sold is now scarce The collections of rental Income tax should be moved to either Ministry of lands or Councils or Zesco and be collected as usual like ZNBC or Ground rent or rates annually or quarterly That will be less burden some and may secure the tenure of those poor many Zambians in KUKU compound from vultures Disclosure can be made wether self occupied or rented and appropriately inspected…

  18. by ZRA ethical agent Then the individual landlords can proceed and file returns as appropriately i foresee a lot of headaches and difficulties both for ZRA and Individuals in administration of this contrary to qualities of tax administration principles 10% WHT or Turnover is also on the higher side not well graduated to reflect the economics of areas and places on the copper-belt and Lusaka

  19. We know that the best source of revenues on a property that is effective and to administer and maximize is the PROPERTY TRANSFER TAX Its fairly tackles the issues of the Poor and those Richer who often will emerge well off in this and the poorer poorer as their Investments and wealth growth is significantly altered There is room for the Good Pro poor party PF to rethink this Rental tax by ZRA okay

    The best practice in residential SME rental business and commercial Rental tax is to take the following in the 10% tax payable computation:

    “”Depreciation / capital allowances – if available. We assume a typical value for the apartment, based on our valuation research, and…

  20. depreciate on this basis””

    “”We deduct any other typical costs which a landlord pays, management charges, buildings insurance, realtor agency fees, etc. W e either choose a standard percentage deduction (if available) or typical ‘actually incurred’ costs. If real estate tax is normally payable by the landlord, we deduct that.””

    “”We use the term ‘income tax’ in a broad sense, as “any tax levied, proportionately to the amount of income received by the owner for letting property”. Thus VAT on renting property would be considered a “(broad definition) income tax”, but municipal taxes payable by all home-owners whether renting or not, would not be considered ‘income tax’.””

    “”We adopt this (somewhat unusual) definition because it represents reality. Landlords often…

  21. often have to pay taxes on income which are not called income tax, but which are in fact proportional to their income. All these are counted by us as ‘taxes on income’.””

    This in addition to the ethics surrounding the agency in business of disposal and acquisition of land requires the amendment again to the Rental act of ……as varied by the most articulate and very Intelligent Minister of Finance We always support

  22. They will restore it because if you look at the asset classes or empowerment our people have and are invested in especially the middle and poor in compounds its rent and it shield so many poor workers also and some fail to even maintain a paint or so regularly so an additional ZRA will diminish their holding period gains and returns pass through some local compound and see how landlords struggle to maintain tenants say North-mead or Fairview or Chelstone and then additional 10% gross-up is gross-up to them Ma Pressure and TALUKA every month Find another way of administering and growing the tax base

  23. PF are very greedy rascals.
    They waited after the Lusaka fools voted for a PF Mayor, and announced the Taxes.

    Now, they want to recoup the money they lost in election campaigns along with the massive corruption of PF.
    If only, Lusaka and Copperbelt fools will one day wake-up.
    Luasaka and Copperbelt fools – you will reap what you sow.

  24. Ndanje Khakis: I’m surprised that this has come from you, of all people! You created the PF monster and now it’s coming for you.

  25. They have failed to collect fair tax from the so called investors that our plundering our resources and yet have the nerve to squeeze every ounce of juice out of the hard working voters that put them in power.
    Voters are the suckers..quit complaining………more money in your pocket.

  26. When an opposition politician said brace for hard times ahead, you thougt he was politicking, here we are now. ZRA will be going in your homes hunting you down for tax

  27. Its more about Zambia’s Social security Many elders and millenials are overweight (30%) on real estate with little returns in income because of the cost of maintaining Now if the cole is disturbilised then its becomes trick to GOVERN land is important for local Zambians even in sunninghill You don’t get taxed like that Making lusaka or copperbelt expensive cities takes away the Investments in Real estate also You would not want to Invest i an area where occupancy is 2% annually You should be creating competitive environments taxing appropriately

  28. Taxes can be a disincentive to production. If there is a realization that there is a housing deficit then this is s very short sighted move by the govt. I wonder why our govts are quick to give tax incentives to foreigners and muzungus but not to locals. The mines still arent taxed anywhere near what they should and yet they are untouchable. That is the “more money in your pockets” you voted for. And then the alternative we have in opposition is still holding on to a clown aka HH who will not make it. God help us!!!

  29. This tax should be for non citizen landlords….locals will be discouraged from building. Bore hole tax now this! CNP for sure. Hitting peoples pockets has political consequences, the least among which is apathy.

  30. US tenants will are the ones to suffer – in this new development awe sure, as LANDLORD will increase the amount to accommodate the 10% –

  31. My humble advise to the ruling party is to stop the whole idea coz that one is a sure 2021 exit-proper decampaigning

  32. ultimately we the people are the ones to blame for our lack and fear of participation in the governance of our country. why is it that we simply end our participation at elections and wait until another comes? what is our role between the one election and another?. we are very unpatriotic, had we been people who stand up and mean to correct every wrong, these people we elect to govern would be scared to plunder public resources. as it is because we simply stand by and do nothing, these elected personnel who are meant to serve you will do as they wish until they are kicked out and then we will have others to come and give us the same headaches again. Zambia is our country so stand up for it or be silent and watch this country degenerate to levels never seen before. it only requires a small…

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