News / National
Govt planning to scrap Aids levy
04 Dec 2013 at 20:36hrs | Views
GOVERNMENT plans to scrap Aids levy and introduce a holistic National Health Fund which will draw its funds from the fiscus, bringing relief to the country's tax-burdened workers.
Health and Child Care Deputy Minister Paul Chimedza said in an interview yesterday that the Government was already working on modalities to scrap the Aids levy, which was introduced in 1999 to lessen the burden on workers, many of whom earn low salaries.
The levy was calculated at 3 percent of a person's income tax, rather than on the salary itself.
Apart from Aids levy, Zimbabweans also pay 3,5 percent of their salaries up to a fixed level towards the National Social Security Authority, Pay As You Earn which is at least 20 percent of taxable income above US$250 (tax-free threshold), while VAT is at 15 percent, withholding tax for companies in the informal sector stands at 10 percent, and Capital Gains Tax for profits accrued from the sale of immovable property is a flat five percent.
The planned scrapping of the Aids levy comes at a time when Parliament was debating a motion to introduce a cancer levy.
"Once the National Health Fund is in place, we will no longer have things like Aids levy or cancer levy, but a single fund from where resources to fight various health care challenges will be drawn and we are working on the modalities of how the fund will operate," said Dr Chimedza.
"While we applaud the ongoing efforts in some quarters to bring to the attention of the nation the challenges being faced by people with diseases such as cancer, we feel as a ministry that there is need for a holistic approach to all health care issues in Zimbabwe and in that sense we are working on the modalities for the establishment of a National Health Fund from which money for all the country's health care programmes will come."
Health and Child Care Deputy Minister Paul Chimedza said in an interview yesterday that the Government was already working on modalities to scrap the Aids levy, which was introduced in 1999 to lessen the burden on workers, many of whom earn low salaries.
The levy was calculated at 3 percent of a person's income tax, rather than on the salary itself.
The planned scrapping of the Aids levy comes at a time when Parliament was debating a motion to introduce a cancer levy.
"Once the National Health Fund is in place, we will no longer have things like Aids levy or cancer levy, but a single fund from where resources to fight various health care challenges will be drawn and we are working on the modalities of how the fund will operate," said Dr Chimedza.
"While we applaud the ongoing efforts in some quarters to bring to the attention of the nation the challenges being faced by people with diseases such as cancer, we feel as a ministry that there is need for a holistic approach to all health care issues in Zimbabwe and in that sense we are working on the modalities for the establishment of a National Health Fund from which money for all the country's health care programmes will come."
Source - Herald
