ZRA gives relief through Tax Time to Pay Agreements

BUUMBA CHIMBULU writes DEFAULTING tax payers have been giving a life line by the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) in form of Tax Time to Pay Agreements (TPAs) that will allow qualified tax payers to pay in installments of up to 12 months. ZRA Commissioner General, Kingsley Chanda explained that the authority was committed to ensuring the public were tax compliant by agreeing to a form of relief. “We do have a couple of taxpayers that are on TPAs and they have been paying according to what we agreed. “Normally this ranges from six to 12 months but certainly not beyond 12 months unless our taxpayer continues to be in distress,” he said in an interview. Mr Chanda however clarified that signing TPAs was a not a normal form of business for ZRA. He stressed that these were given in special cases due to various reasons especially when taxpayers face cash flow challenges. “So in those peculiar cases, we do sit down with a client and look at their cash flow and decide that they pay their due taxes in instalments,” Mr Chanda said. Mr Chanda also said ZRA was grating tax relief through the measures which were announced by the Finance Minister, Bwalya Ng’andu, where applicable to cushion cash flow pressure caused by Covid-19. He explained that ZRA had continued to provide that relief, understanding the current Covid-19 situation. “The position of Government is very clear, our minister made a statement instructing ZRA to look at each case of merit and ensure that business is not strangled as a result of Covid-19. “Taxpayer that have approached us with specific requests of some kind of relief where applicable, according to our laws, we have granted,” Mr Chanda said. Mr Chanda said his organisation was giving taxpayers who had approached ZRA payments terms. “We are not giving tax waivers per say, what we are giving are maybe payments terms where there are penalties and interests we are waiving and by the way penalties and interest in not revenue. “Those are penal provisions in our Act as a result of wrong doing on the part of the importer, so they are not even profiled in our targets, so those according to the law, the Commissioner General has authority to waive depending on the mitigation that taxpayers provided,” he said. The Sun