THE need by the Zambian Government to widen the tax dragnet has become more imperative with the dwindling sources of alternative public resources.
Following Zambia’s attainment of the lower middle income country status, a few years ago, the country has been relying more on its local sources of income as opposed to external support.
This is because with new status, the country has been receiving less of grants from cooperating partners as well as less of concessional loans from the multilateral lending institutions.
In short the new status entails that the copper-rich country is now relatively better positioned to fend for itself using local resources and where that is not ample, to borrow funds from the open market at commercial interest rates.
It is, therefore, vital that before even looking externally, the government, through its tax collecting wings like the Zambia Revenue Authority, should ensure that it collects all revenue due to the State.
It is saddening to hear reports of some uncollected taxes as the result of perceived laxity by those entrusted with the responsibility to collect these vital funds.
On the other hand citizens should feel duty bound to pay these taxes because whatever is realised through taxation goes many places to achieve public good.
Apart from paying the salaries of government workers, the tax helps to support common resources, like national security, health, roads, schools, firefighting services and many other areas of public interest.
The efforts by the government to collect more taxes, however, are being countered by some business entities and individual citizens who are engaged in tax evasion and avoidance.
Secretary to the Treasury Fredson Yamba says the Government is concerned with emerging incidences of avoidance of tax obligations by some shop operators and traders, for instance.
The incidence of tax avoidance, which is not illegal, is on the rise following the strengthening of the laws against tax evasion.
According to Mr Yamba of specific concern over the last few months is the retail sector, where the habit of selling goods without issuing cash-register receipts to buyers by several traders has become widespread and deep-rooted.
This has led to a situation where the Government has continued losing the revenue which is needed to augment the resource envelop for financing employment creation, poverty reduction and other social sector programmes.
Indubitably, it is the duty of every business house which meets the relevant threshold, to issue official sale receipts and keep proper sales records.
It is, likewise, every citizen’s civic responsibility to demand for such receipts from shop owners/traders after making any payment for goods and services.
The members of the general public should, therefore, exercise the sense of patriotism by being vigilant and guard public resources through ensuring that they insist on getting receipts from established sellers.
This is because, when traders do not issue receipts, the government ends up with low Value Added Tax (VAT) collections from the sector.
As they say – nothing ventured, nothing gained – the Government should too invest more in the tax management system so that, just like the issue of evasion, tax avoidance incidences could also be abated.
Once the incidences of tax avoidance, which is a legal use of tax laws to reduce one’s tax burden, and tax evasion, which is the illegal way of avoiding to pay taxes, are addressed, the tax compliance levels will be raised.
This will lead to a situation where all those who  are required to pay taxes do so thereby reducing the burden of meeting the obligation by the few who are already doing so. OPINION