Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Obert Chifamba
9 July 2009
Harare — THE Zimbabwe Revenue Authority has stepped up audit inspections and tax compliance checks to collect all the revenue the Government so direly needs in its current drive to rejuvenate its operations.
Zimra has, with immediate effect, introduced a whistleblowers' initiative where a person who gives information that results in the recovery of revenue will be entitled to 10 percent of the recovered amount.
In an interview yesterday, Zimra commissioner for Legal and Corporate Services Ms Florence Jambwa said Commissioner General Mr Geshom Pasi has been empowered to attach movable and immovable property to recover any tax debt.
However, liability to pay tax in foreign currency will not be affected by failure to comply with other pieces of legislation.
The operation is part of the Government's mandate to collect revenue, protect civil society (for instance from harmful and prohibited drugs, dangerous weapons) and to enforce various pieces of legislation under its administration.
Ms Jambwa said the audits came in various forms, including door-to-door searches, roadblocks, desk audits, searches and or raids, highway patrols and even targeted clients at places like flea markets where undeclared merchandise may be sold.
Routine and random compliance checks are carried out on clients in line with Zimra's mandate. For instance, the checks include both individuals and companies that bring goods into the country for various purposes.
"Some people import goods under travellers' rebate for own consumption but later throw them into the commercial market.
"Then there are those importers, mostly cross border and flea market traders who split consignments and delegate them to runners and traders at the point of entry for them to enjoy traveller's rebate yet the goods are for resale," Ms Jambwa said.
She said some goods were smuggled to circumvent payment of duty and related taxes to Zimra while some were cleared at points of entry as removal in transit destined for neighbouring countries yet they were offloaded in Zimbabwe.
"Such dubious practices had forced the authority to implement the rather drastic routine checks to account for all revenue that would have made its entry into the country without being declared.
"The audits and compliance checks which Zimra carries out regularly entail a continuous process which is reviewed at appropriate times to determine whether they are still providing an effective monitoring and enforcement mechanism," said Ms Jambwa.
Zimra expects clients to provide accurate and correct information, submit returns and payments on time and include Value Added Tax in adverts and quotes and may even sometimes request clients to produce relevant documents when required by the Commissioner.
The client is also expected to advise the Commissioner of any changes in business details, for instance addresses, trading names, partners and banks details for accountability and to keep accurate accounting records for at least six years lest they are required for verification purposes.
Zimra is also making it mandatory for clients to advise the Commissioner of any changes of the representative person for easy traceability of tax payments.
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