By THE Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) recorded a 16% percent increase in revenue collected for the month of July at the back of the automation drive amongst a number of other factors. ZIMRA exceeded the $269.41 million target for July after gross collections amounted to $302.86 million, while net collections after deducting $16.37 million refunds were $286.49 million. Net revenue collections were, 6.34 % above target and outweighed the July 2016 collections by 16.36%.
Zimra’s says its performance is attributed to the automation drive, stakeholder engagements, anti-corruption initiatives and intensified enforcement programmes that are being implemented by the Authority to enhance revenue collections.
According to Financial Express, Revenue collections for the seven months to July 2017 were also above the 2016 collections, except for April and June where revenue targets were marginally missed by 6.70% and 2.24 % respectively.
Value Added Tax (VAT) on both local sales and imports performed positively above set targets, mainly due to the increase in the use of electronic payment systems and the rolling out of the Electronic Cargo Tracking System, which continues to bear fruits through curbing smuggling and transit fraud.
Collections under VAT on Imports were $37.73 million against a target of $28.60 million. Revenue collections under this revenue head exceeded the set target by 31.93% and increased by 24.07 % as compared to the $30.41 million collected in July 2016.
Individual Tax recorded a 6.09 % increase from the July 2016 collections on the back of intensified enforcement measures being implemented by the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority. The $64.72 million collected in July was also 1.48 % above the target of $63.77 million.
Increase in volumes of fuel imports, owing to improved availability of foreign currency on priority imports and the Electronic Cargo Tracking System improved volumes of properly declared fuels entering the domestic market, hence an upsurge in Excise Duty collections.
The revenue head contributed $59.96 million against a target of $56.39 million, resulting in a positive variance of 6.34 percent. Excise Duty collections were, thus, 30.32 % above the $46.01 million collected in July 2016. Corporate Income Tax collections of $12.42 million were 15.03 % above target.
Customs Duty, contributed gross collections of $27.72 million and net revenue of $27.71 million against a target of $23.70 million, resulting in a positive variance of 16.90 % on net revenue collections. Net collections for July 2017 increased by 35.01% from the $20.52 million collected in the same period last year.
Zimra’s drive towards widening the tax net saw the moratorium for registration of small-to-medium enterprises between January and June that saw 13,000 new taxpayers registering with the authority.
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