Source: Zimra targets US$ charging businesses to raise dollars – NewsDay Zimbabwe January 30, 2020
Zimbabwe’s tax agency on Monday ordered businesses charging their customers in foreign currency to also settle their tax obligations in foreign currency, as the government aims to raise scarce dollars.
In June last year, authorities in the southern African nation re-introduced the Zimbabwe dollar, ending a decade of dollarisation, in a move that sent inflation soaring to three-digit figures.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government made it illegal to charge customers in US dollars, but many businesses still do. Miners and some companies in the tourism sector were, however, allowed to pay workers in US dollars.
The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority said it had discovered that some businesses were charging in foreign currencies and should therefore “remit (the) taxes in foreign currencies”.
This includes value added tax, capital gains, pay-as-you-earn and income tax.
Without US dollar or gold reserves, the local currency has continued to weaken against the greenback, but Mnangagwa maintains that there is no going back to dollarisation. The opposition and some economists say Zimbabwe should abandon the local currency for the dollar to stabilise prices and encourage foreign investment. – Reuters
COMMENTS
The madness has now reached another level. Our understanding as common pple is that the USD dollar is now an illegal tender in the country. Now gvt says it wants to collect taxes in USDs. One would think if some are trading in USDs, which gvt declared illegal, then they should be prosecuted not pay illegal taxes. Is that not common sense? I’m sure if you go to report that a thief has stolen your US$100 then if the thief happens to be granted a fine our wise judges will now insist on the fine being paid in USDs becoz that’s form in which the thief stole the money; isn’t it? Now juxtapose all these shenanigans coming from the same system with Chief justice’s recent judgement on debts accrued in USDs during the multi-currency era. You really get something that has neither head nor tail.