The Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) says it has exceeded its revenue target in the first five months of 2017 by K480 million, representing 3.3 per cent operation above target.

This is according to RZA Senior Corporate Communications Officer Oliver Nzala.

“In the 2017 national budget, Parliament approved a revenue target of K37.622 billion subject to the legislation of specific tax measures among which was the tax on copper concentrates and border crossing fees. However, Parliament did not legislate some of the proposed tax measures resulting in a revision of the 2017 operational target for ZRA to K36.774 billion. Against the 2017 operational target, ZRA is K480 million or 3.3 per cent above target for the first five months,” Nzala said in a statement today.

“The Authority is very confident of meeting its revenue collection target by the end of the year because of measures and initiatives it has implemented such as collecting Value Added Tax (VAT) at source of which K1.454 billion has been collected from 1st January, 2017 to 31stMay, 2017. The Authority will also introduce fiscalization in order to have an improved level of domestic VAT collections through monitoring of sales at the point of sale.”

He added that ZRA would soon conduct forensic audits on large mining companies in order to appreciate their various complex financial processes they go through when generating incomes that are used for tax purposes, an exercise he said would be done by an independent auditor.

“Apart from the decentralization of anti-smuggling operations, the Authority has also recruited 45 tax inspectors in order to enhance revenue compliance and enforcement especially in the retail sector. In April, 2017 ZRA also introduced the tax amnesty in order to provide relieve to taxpayers on interest and penalties while collecting the principal tax. The Authority has also adopted zero tolerance to smuggling and tax evasion,” stated Nzala.