Paying taxes not punishment – Mutati

By HOPE BWALYA –
FINANCE Minister Felix Mutati has urged Zambians to embrace paying taxes, as it is the source for real development and should not be viewed as punishment.
Mr Mutati said it was important that people invested in paying tax as whatever they paid was what was used to develop the country.
The minister said this when he toured Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) offices in Lusaka on Friday.
“I appeal to all citizens to pay taxes. Paying taxes is not a punishment, it’s not a disruption of business. To pay tax is to pay for your medicine, so when you don’t pay, don’t complain,” he said.
Mr Mutati said it was also important to make tax payment closer to the people.

MUTATI

He said the ZRA should construct points for tax payments at every business place as every amount counted.
Meanwhile, ZRA has of this quarter ended May realised about K408.9 million that constitutes 3.3 per cent beyond the target.
It has also raised about K105 million from the 89,331 applications that were received during the amnesty period that was instituted in July last year and will be ending in December this year.
ZRA commissioner general Kingsley Chanda said the institution was facing some challenges, which included a lack of compliance by the business community to pay tax.
Mr Chanda said the country’s economy was not performing well due to the lack of compliance by the business sector in paying their tax obligations, which forced the institution to take stringent measures in collecting taxes.
He said poor compliance was because most business people hated to pay tax, which led to the poor performance of the economy.
Mr Chanda said another challenge was that the institution was not in all the parts of the country, which made some people evade tax.
He also said the practice of people paying in cash was another challenge ZRA faced because paying cash made it difficult to track and monitor the tax that could be drawn from it.