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The Zambia Revenue Authority will this year include presumptive tax on passenger transport once the modalities are finalised.
In addition, local authorities will be allowed to collect turnover tax in bus stations and markets.
This is meant to increase tax collections associated with each local authority in 2023 and consequently rise the commission.
Read more: ZRA blocks attempt to evade K.8m tax, seizes smuggled boxes of dettol, trucks.
Joseph Nonde, Acting Commission General said ZRA had decided to appoint local authorities as tax collection agents in the informal sector.
This was done due to the limited presence of the Authority in some parts of the country, stating that local councils are everywhere and manage most of the areas where the informal sector players operate from.
Nonde said this during the workshop to review the tax collection agency partnership with local authorities in Lusaka on Wednesday.
“We decided to partner with the local authorities so as to improve compliance and optimise tax collections particularly from the informal sector based businesses,” Nonde said.
He said ZRA was exploring the possibility of using alternative payment platforms like the e-levy revenue collection system that the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has implemented with local authorities in markets and bus stations for the collection of levies .
Speaking at the same event, Local Government and Rural Development permanent secretary Mambo Hamaundu encouraged the councils to embrace the tax collection agency partnership.
“You will agree that this is for the good of the government because it supports the government decentralisation policy.
“One of the key initiatives of decentralisation is evidenced also by the Constituency Development Fund which is disbursed at district level with councils being in charge. This therefore calls for financial literacy,” Hamaundu said.
He noted that the councils have been appointed as tax collection agents because they have the capacity in terms of human capital to fulfil the obligations of the partnership.
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