Minister of Finance and Economic Development Professor Mthuli Ncube told parliamentarians that the 2 cents per dollar tax, which came up during this year’s monetary policy statement, is here to stay during a budget brief in Bulawayo last week.
The tax changes from 5 cents per transaction to 2 cents per dollar transaction had been negatively received by trades unions which accused the taxes of causing price hikes.
“I want to make it very clear, the tax is staying absolutely, we just fine tune it,” (sic) Ncube said.
“Why this tax is appropriate is because it’s inclusive. We already have got US$ 2,3 billion that has not been remitted to us as treasury.”
The Minister told parliamentarians to expect some changes in the 2c per dollar transaction as glitches are discovered during the implementation
“You actually find other countries in the region copying us and also developed countries also copying us and of course when they do it they would have learnt from us. They would actually look better and smarter,” Ncube said,
“But the truth is we started it and will have to do a bit of learning,”
Britain announced that it will introduce the 2c per every dollar transaction in 2020.
Besides the 2c per dollar transaction, the Finance Minister said his department is working on taxes for the informal sector.
Taxing the informal sector is part of a strategy to expand the tax base for Zimbabwe which has a debt of over US$10 billion.
