Govt Lose $3,5 Billion To Company Directors Who Shut Down Companies, Then Re-open Under Different Names

The government has reportedly lost over $3,5 billion because of company directors who shut down their firms in order to avoid payment of taxes only to re-establish themselves under different trading names. This was revealed by the Minister of Finance and Economic Development Mthuli Ncube.

Ncube urged the Parliament to support the insertion of a clause to the law that holds devious directors of companies that are wound up or declared insolvent liable in their personal capacities. Said Ncube:

We are seeking to avoid this, plug the hole and make sure that this does not happen. I, therefore, submit that this clause is accepted as is, it is progressive and it is plugging a hole that ought to be plugged. After all, we are owed $3,5 billion because of this kind of practice.

With effect from the year of assessment beginning on January 1, 2019, section 77 (“Recovery of tax”) of the Income Tax Act [Chapter 23:06] is amended by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (7) —

(8) If, in Zimbabwe or in its country of formation, incorporation or registration, a company or entity (“the old company or entity”) is wound up voluntarily, or otherwise in circumstances that give rise to a reasonable suspicion that it was deliberately put into liquidation to avoid any tax liability, and—
(a) the directors (or other persons acting in a similar capacity) of the old company or entity (or any of them)—
(i) incorporate or register another company or other entity (hereinafter called the “new company or entity”) that carries out substantially the same business as the old company; or
(ii) operate as sole traders, whether individually or collectively, carrying on substantially the same business as the old company;
(b) the whole or a substantial part of its business and property wherever situated is transferred to another company or entity which will be or has been formed, incorporated or registered under any law;
the directors of the old company or entity (whether or not any of them become directors of or act in a similar capacity in relation to the new company or entity) shall be jointly and severally liable for the amount of any tax due and payable by the old company or entity.

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