ZIMRA (Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) is reported to have done well in the last month. In fact, they did almost 30 percent better than they had expected for the month.
See with entities like ZIMRA it’s hard to establish what emotion to tie with such news. Yes, we’re glad that whenever ZIMRA generates revenue, the country benefits but the fact that the money is directly being collected from us makes it a little harder to swallow.
Besides, had ZIMRA not been synonymous with corruption and not so infamous with the citizens, maybe that wouldn’t have been too difficult to decide which emotion to go with. But then again, tax collectors have never really been the most appreciated people on the planet. I mean it even goes as far back as in Zacchaeus’s time. We (citizens) tend to forget that it’s actually the country as a whole that stands to benefit from these collections (well, ideally).
Anyway, last month (November 2017) ZIMRA generated a revenue of about $352 million. According to the Herald, ZIMRA’s corporate communications manager, Canisio Mudzimu said:
Gross collections for the month of November amounted to $352,24 million against a target of $269,83 million, which translates to a positive variance of 30,54 percent. Net collections of $335,38 million were 24,29 percent above target. The November 2017 net collections grew by 34,21 percent from the $249,90 million that was collected during the same period last year.
Also, Mr Mudzimu went on to attribute the increase to the measures of collecting revenue that they put in place e.g. automation, audits and anti-corruption initiatives. Automation of course is of interest to us as it indicates that the government is indeed adapting to the the digital times in which we’re in.
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9 comments
let’s see companies increased prices to reflect the cost of acquiring us dollars on the black market. at abt 30% zimra gets 30% more than target. not an economist but its good at the same time worrying that eve. gvt revenue now yakaburner
Kkkk well done zimra .dont forget yo workers its africa tragedy wen rhe workers earn far less rhan yo blotted management buying cars every fours thats corruption.
Yea, it’s possible they actually collected less than targeted and less than same period last year in real USD terms.
Their measures to collect more are probably not working at all
Kkkk well done zimra .dont forget yo workers its africa tragedy wen rhe workers earn far less rhan yo blotted management buying cars every fours thats corruption.
how can you lie like that to pple cause Zimra spent the whole month trying to fix their network up to now it’s still Down & they don’t no when it will be back ?
Unless you’re speaking as one who works at Zimra or has access to their accounts then let’s go with what their own report says. Otherwise it merely means regardless of their network issues they still managed to collect more…. from other avenues maybe
Well done ZIMRA
However, what must also be considered is a confession by an official, through another article in the Herald newspaper, that ZIMRA is only managing to collect about 30% of potential revenue. So the 30% surpass in the above article means that it perhaps only went up to 60% of what is collectable. In other words, the target that was exceeded was simply short of what the market potential is. Why is the targetted revenue not close to what the market potential is?
The article referred to above “HARARE: Zimbabwe’s tax agency says it is only collecting about 30 percent of potential revenue as tax compliance remains a challenge.
The bulk of the southern African nation’s revenue collections comes from individual tax (Pay As You Earn), followed by excise duty.
Corporates are the highest defaulters, accounting for biggest chunk of the $3,12 billion tax debt as at June.
“Currently we are just collecting a fraction, maybe 30 percent of what we should be collecting, if we were to collect all the monies which are collectable we would not have such a big economic problem as we have,” Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) chairperson, Willia Bonyongwe told a tax conference last Friday.
“The structure of our economy and industries has changed, where we used to go and find people, you do not find them anymore, there are now working from houses and different places. Their banks and clients know where they are while the taxman does not know, which is a problem.”
ZIMRA expects to surpass to surpass this year’s $3,7 billion revenue target by at least 15 percent on improved collection efforts”.