Mthuli Proposes A $30 Tenants Tax For Informal Traders
During yesterday’s 2021 national budget presentation, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube proposed that informal traders pay USD $30 tax to be collected through their landlords, ZimPrice Check reports.
According to the publication, the tax has always been there but tenants were evading paying it. The Minister is just proposing a new way to collect the tax.
The part of the budget statement that speaks about the new proposal by the Minister states that:
A number of enterprises operate from designated business premises where the landlords are either Local Authorities or private property owners such as the Gulf Complex and Kwame Nkrumah Mall, among others. Their place of business is, thus, comprised of partitioned units in commercial buildings.
The fixed nature of the business, thus, presents an opportunity for the tax administration to improve tax collections from presumptive taxes. I, therefore, propose to introduce a presumptive tax of an equivalent of US$30 per unit per month.
Apart from the tenants tax, Professor Mthuli also set presumptive tax for other informal traders and stated that:
- Bottle-stores and restaurants $10 000 ZWL
- Hairdressers $2 500 ZWL
- Cottage industry $10 000 ZWL
The tenants tax will only apply on commercial properties and they will not apply on domestic properties according to the publication. The minister projected that the economy will grow with an estimated 7.4% in the next 2 years among other projections.
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