ZIMRA thrives to increase collections

The ZIMRA Board Chairperson, Mrs Willia Bonyongwe, has applauded the Authority for stepping up its efforts to collect revenue for the fiscus despite the prevailing economic challenges in 2016.

"Annual gross collections amounted to US$3.462 billion, which was 96% of the targeted US$3.607 billion. The 2016 target was, therefore, missed by 4%.

Despite the MOFED revising the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth figure by almost half, the ZIMRA target remained the same and the performance is testimony that the Revenue Authority is going in the right direction," said Mrs Bonyongwe while presenting the revenue performance report for 2016.

Net collections amounted to US$3.248 billion but were 91.05% of the target. They were affected by an upsurge in refunds in the third and fourth quarters and the Authority is investigating what caused that surge. Net collections went down by 7.22% in relation to the same period in 2015, which should be reviewed in light of a 2.7% GDP growth in 2015 compared to 1.2% in 2016", reads the report.

Mrs Bonyongwe attributed the failure to surpass revenue targets in 2016 largely to the prevailing harsh economic conditions and unwillingness to meet tax obligations by some clients. She however, commended ZIMRA for putting in place several revenue enhancement measures to increase the tax base, the compliance rate, and enforcement, including automation through the fiscalisation, Tax Management System, Cargo Tracking System and the use of various databases from related stakeholders to catch up tax evaders.