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Harare Bureau
Zimbabwe’s highly taxed workers will soon get a relief, with the Government working on scrapping the three percent tax on income for Aids levy and introduce a holistic National Health Fund which will draw its funds from the national budget. Health and Child Care Deputy Minister Paul Chimedza said in an interview yesterday that Government was already working on the modalities to scrap the Aids levy that was introduced in 1999 to lessen the burden on workers who were already earning less.
Apart from the Aids levy, Zimbabweans also pay 3,5 percent of their salaries towards the National Social Security Authority, Pay As You Earn which is at least 20 percent of taxable income above $250 (tax free threshhold), while Value Added Tax is at 15 percent, income tax is at least 25 percent, withholding tax for companies in the informal sector stands at 10 percent, and Capital Gains Tax for profits accrued from the sale of immovable property is a flat five percent.
The scrapping off of the Aids levy comes at a time Parliament is debating a motion to introduce a cancer levy.
“Once the National Health Fund is in place, we will no longer have things like Aids levy or cancer levy, but a single fund from where resources to fight various health care challenges will be drawn and we are working on the modalities of how the fund will operate,” said Dep Min Chimedza.
“While we applaud the ongoing efforts in some quarters to bring to the attention of the nation the challenges being faced by people with diseases such as cancer, we feel as a ministry that there is need for a holistic approach to all health care issues in Zimbabwe and in that sense we are working on the modalities for the establishment of a National
Health Fund from which money for all the country’s health care programmes will come.”
The deputy minister said the establishment of the National Health Fund would immediately cause the removal of the Aids levy.
He said his ministry was against what he termed the “compartmentalisation” of the fight against diseases.
“What we are saying is that we cannot introduce a levy for every disease that affects many people in our country otherwise we will end up with the Aids levy, Cancer levy, Hypertension levy, or Diabetes levy,” said Deputy Min Chimedza.
“The way to go is to just create a National Health Fund and not compartmentalise the fight against diseases. While the need to introduce a levy to help victims of cancer is noble, our workers are already over-taxed and burdened enough to continue piling more levies on them, hence the rationale behind a single fund to cater for all health care challenges.
If we insist on more levies our workers will take home nothing.”
Online Reporter