Govt to tax kombis, hairdressers
By Farayi Machamire
Broke President Robert Mugabe’s government has introduced taxes for commuter operators – popularly known as kombis – and hairdressers, as part of desperate moves to raise funds.
According to last Friday’s gazette, authorities were given legal teeth to compel the “operators of hairdressing salons (to pay) $10 per chair per month” while “informal cross border traders (will pay) 10 per centum of the value for duty purposes of the commercial goods being imported…”
“Operators of omnibuses for the carriage of passengers with a seating capacity for 15 to 25 passengers will be required to pay $45 while those of between 25 and 36 passengers will part with $70 a month,” it added.
The new wave of taxes, with effect from January 1 2017, brought into being by the Finance Act 2017, will also affect driving school operators, with those for class four vehicles being required to pay $100 per month.
Class one and two vehicles operators will part with $130 a month.
This comes as the government has been struggling to service its burgeoning expenditure and failing to pay civil servants on time due to severely strained revenue streams.
“The presumptive tax chargeable in terms of Section 36C of the Taxes Act shall be in case of…operators of taxi cabs for the carriage of passengers for hire or reward having seating accommodation for not more than seven passengers, $25 per month for each such taxi cab so operated,” the gazette reads.
“Operators of goods vehicles having a carrying capacity of more than 10 tonnes but less than 20 tonnes, $200,” the gazette reads, adding that goods vehicles of 20 tonnes or more will be required to pay $500 per month.
Companies which are not resident in Zimbabwe but “carries on a business in Zimbabwe through a permanent establishment in Zimbabwe” will be liable to tax.
The meaning of permanent establishment, according to the gazette, is a company that has a fixed place of business in the country through which the business of the company is wholly or partly carried on.
Meanwhile, there was some relief for small scale miners whose presumptive tax is being calculated at zero percent of each dollar of the purchase price of metals. Daily News
