. Chanda

By CHILA NAMAIKO –
THE Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) has collected K719.22 million since the launch of its tax amnesty initiative in April this year.
This is as of July 31 this year, which includes income tax and value-added tax (VAT), accounting for 72 per cent of the amount received.
ZRA Commissioner General Kingsley Chanda said the Authority was willing to extend the period for time-pa-agreements (TPAs) for taxpayers with tax liabilities exceeding K10 million to June 30 next year.
Mr Chanda said at a media briefing yesterday that ZRA expected additional revenue from over 2,000 TPAs signed by various taxpayers.
This is worth K2,549.19 million, of which K934.11 million was expected to be fully settled by the end of this year.
“It is important to note that so far, ZRA has collected K1,961.73 million from the tax debt, out of which, as I earlier said, K719.22 million is directly attributed to the tax amnesty and has been largely paid by micro, small and medium enterprises,” Mr Chanda said.
ZRA launched an amnesty on interest and penalties in April. In the first 100 days, it had received 848,788 applications out of which 617,435 cases were processed and approved for waiver, while the remainder was still work-in-progress.
A total of 96,107 applications were rejected on account of not meeting the amnesty conditions.
Mr Chanda, however, said ZRA could extend the period for TPAs to taxpayers with tax liabilities exceeding K10 million to be done on a case-by-case basis.
While the institution hailed taxpayers that responded, Mr Chanda urged those ‘sitting on the fence’ to make their declarations and payments in the remaining two weeks remained, with Mr Chanda warning the authority would invoke enforcement on taxpayers that chose to remain delinquent.
He said ZRA also refunded K4,068.4 million in VAT refunds from January to July this year, out of which K329 million related to long outstanding VAT Rule 18 refund areas while K3,739.9 million was for the current period.
Of the amount refunded, 76 per cent was made to mining companies while the remainder was made to economic sectors.
ZRA, however, discovered fraudulent refund claims, but would not refund without proper documentation.
Mr Chanda said the institution was enhancing tax collection to finance the national Budget.