OPPOSITION MPs were disgruntled last week after being out-voted by the ruling party Zanu PF legislators following a robust Finance Bill debate in Parliament on Thursday and Friday.
The Bill will now go to the Senate for approval.
The CCC MPs argued that the government was taxing struggling small businesses yet huge foreign conglomerates were being exempted from paying certain taxes.
"We from the opposition raised fundamental issues. The first thing that we disagreed with the Finance Bill was the desperate measures that the government is taking in terms of taxing the poor, like for instance the request by the minister (Mthuli Ncube) to charge barbers and hairdressers $30 per month as tax which we thought was unrealistic.
"We also raised the issue of the depreciation of the ZiG primarily because of the fiscal delinquency on the part of the government.
"Then we also successfully stopped the minister from punishing retail traders who were now being forced to procure goods from manufacturers if they were not tax-compliant.
"So we actually managed to do that, and unfortunately given the numbers that they have, we were out-voted and the bill now goes to the Senate," CCC Dzivaresekwa MP Edwin Mushoriwa told NewZimbabwe.com this Monday.
The MP also attributed the economic challenges to mismanagement of funds or poor governance.
"The real problem in this country is poor governance and also the failure to adhere to Chapter (2:01) 17 of the Constitution and respect to prudent public finance management.
"This is the reason why you find ourselves going in circles as a country. The ZIG which we are told is backed by Gold, has lost value to the extent that it is now almost three times the official rate in the parallel market.
"The government, contrary to their undertaking that they were not going to print money, they are printing money, paying their suppliers without a sufficient cash flow and failure by the government to also support and pay the equivalent US dollars on the foreign exchange market," Mushoriwa added.
He warned that if nothing happens now, by December 2024, the ZiG will be trading at about 50 ZIG to US$1.
Among Ncube's proposed taxes is the deferment of VAT on big companies.
According to CCC Mbizo MP Cobarn Madzivanyika, "That is dangerous in the sense that we are going to see such big companies which will be allowed to defer VAT for maybe two or three years and normally because of continuous changes in our currencies, they will pay that money whilst it is useless."
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Ncube responded that the government thought that "let us retain the VAT deferment so that we do not completely shut out the sector (mining) from any form of incentive whatsoever. Our assessment is that it has had a positive effect in terms of investment in the sector."
However, another opposition legislator Glays Hlatswayo queried the motivations behind the protection of big businesses.
"I am failing to understand why we want to exempt them from VAT or to defer VAT. What exactly is the motivation because I would have thought if we are looking for domestic mobilisation of resources, we are supposed to go after big businesses rather than going for people who do not have money. "
