News / National
Govt gazettes VAT law
12 Dec 2016 at 07:18hrs | Views
Government has gazetted Statutory Instrument 148 of 2016 which will see retail operators and other small businesses paying value added tax from effect January 1, 2017 as part of measures to broaden the country's revenue base.
This comes as the Ministry of Finance has attributed the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra)'s quarterly under-performance to tax avoidance and corruption.
In a Government Gazette released last week, in terms Section 78 of the VAT Act (Chapter 23:12), from January next year, every registered operator who is a retailer operator shall, for the purposes of recording his or her taxable transactions use a fiscalised electronic register and a non-fiscalised electronic register together with a fiscal memory device.
The government has threatened not to issue tax clearance certificates to companies with annual turnover of $240 000 and are not compliant with the fiscalisation process.
These companies have been placed in Category C.
Speaking at a Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries breakfast meeting on Friday, Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa said: "Fiscalisation has not been moving as fast as it should. People are not willing to be monitored (by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) and we have put in place a penalty because there has been resistance."
He said, in his 2017 National Budget statement, 90% of Category C operators have already acquired fiscalised devices, but connection to the Zimra server has, however, been slow, due to resistance by operators.
"Non-compliance has undermined the ability of Zimra to monitor transactions in real time. In order to ensure compliance by Category C operators, non-compliant operators will not be issued with tax clearance certificates.
This implies that 106 that operators will be subject to a withholding tax of 10% of the gross value of sales. This measure takes effect from January 1, 2017," he said.
Chinamasa said some of the devices that were approved in 2010 at the commencement of the fiscalisation process were now outdated and the suppliers must now purchase advanced fiscal devices.
He said 10 companies were licensed to supply fiscalised devices, of which four are no longer operational and this has constrained the supply of fiscalised devices, thereby undermining progress of the
programme.
"It is, therefore, proposed to licence additional suppliers of fiscalised devices. These will complement existing suppliers in meeting the anticipated demand for fiscal devices that will arise from extension of the fiscalisation programme to operators in categories A, B and D," he said.
Speaking at the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce business review conference recently, Zimra acting commissioner-general Happias Kuzvinzwa said non-compliance would result in a penalty of $25 per day being levied and possible prosecution.
The government embarked on the fiscalisation process in 2010 to increase revenue inflows to Treasury coffers.
Fiscalisation is a computerised systemisation of cash register devices to enable them to record, in real time, sales and other tax information for use by the tax authority, Zimra in value-added tax administration.
This comes as the Ministry of Finance has attributed the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra)'s quarterly under-performance to tax avoidance and corruption.
In a Government Gazette released last week, in terms Section 78 of the VAT Act (Chapter 23:12), from January next year, every registered operator who is a retailer operator shall, for the purposes of recording his or her taxable transactions use a fiscalised electronic register and a non-fiscalised electronic register together with a fiscal memory device.
The government has threatened not to issue tax clearance certificates to companies with annual turnover of $240 000 and are not compliant with the fiscalisation process.
These companies have been placed in Category C.
Speaking at a Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries breakfast meeting on Friday, Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa said: "Fiscalisation has not been moving as fast as it should. People are not willing to be monitored (by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) and we have put in place a penalty because there has been resistance."
He said, in his 2017 National Budget statement, 90% of Category C operators have already acquired fiscalised devices, but connection to the Zimra server has, however, been slow, due to resistance by operators.
This implies that 106 that operators will be subject to a withholding tax of 10% of the gross value of sales. This measure takes effect from January 1, 2017," he said.
Chinamasa said some of the devices that were approved in 2010 at the commencement of the fiscalisation process were now outdated and the suppliers must now purchase advanced fiscal devices.
He said 10 companies were licensed to supply fiscalised devices, of which four are no longer operational and this has constrained the supply of fiscalised devices, thereby undermining progress of the
programme.
"It is, therefore, proposed to licence additional suppliers of fiscalised devices. These will complement existing suppliers in meeting the anticipated demand for fiscal devices that will arise from extension of the fiscalisation programme to operators in categories A, B and D," he said.
Speaking at the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce business review conference recently, Zimra acting commissioner-general Happias Kuzvinzwa said non-compliance would result in a penalty of $25 per day being levied and possible prosecution.
The government embarked on the fiscalisation process in 2010 to increase revenue inflows to Treasury coffers.
Fiscalisation is a computerised systemisation of cash register devices to enable them to record, in real time, sales and other tax information for use by the tax authority, Zimra in value-added tax administration.
Source - Sundaymail
