Here’s how to pay your taxes using Ownai

ZIMRA recently published their Q3 revenue report and in it was this interesting detail;

During the quarter, additional tax payment relationships with OWNAI and One Money platforms were introduced for payment convenience.

ZIMRA Q3 report

This made us wonder what this payment relationship with Ownai was and when it was struck. The OneMoney-ZIMRA relationship we wrote about when it was announced back in 2019 and then when it was effected in 2020. After looking at the payment options on Ownai, they simply made something similar to what OneMoney-ZIMRA had done except their solution is web-based unlike OneMoney’s which is USSD-based.

The partnership announced back in July allows businesses and individuals to pay their assessment and business partner numbers on Ownai. The BP number is used as an identification number for businesses whilst taxpayers can use the assessment number to identify their tax arrears before making payments. Previously, I described it as an invoice-of-sorts.

When ZIMRA announced the partnership with OneMoney, commissioner Faith Mazani mentioned that their intent was to ensure that more ordinary citizens would pay their taxes and that’s probably the same thinking with Ownai’s ZIMRA portal;

I’m speaking here about the ordinary honest citizen who does not own up, not because of a lack willpower, but a lack of know-how. People discover that they owe an obligation to ZIMRA at the point where we come to collect, whilst, in other cases, the knowledge was available but a convenient method of meeting the obligation was not, until now.

Faith Mazani – ZIMRA Commissioner General

At the time we also speculated on whether the partnership would remain exclusive. It seems for mobile users OneMoney is still the exclusive partner but Ownai’s addition broadens the number of people who can pay their taxes online.

The addition of such an option is more critical during a pandemic when people aren’t as confident travelling as they once were;

The Ownai Convenience Store will help businesses operating in these trying times to settle their statutory obligations with great ease and at minimum cost, given the current COvID-19 pandemic and the restrictions in movement that come with it.

Cassava Smartech Zimbabwe’s chief executive officer Eddie Chibi

How to pay customs/Domestic taxes on Ownai

1. Go to https://cs.ownai.co.zw/zimra;
2. Choose between Customs taxes and Domestic taxes;
3. Select your province;
4. Select the tax obligation;
5. Enter Business Partner Number &/or Assessment Number