Hair salons cry foul over tax

revealed that in most salons business was really slow with only a few coming for shaving.
In an interview, the director of Free Style hair salon, Miss Rikki Nathanson, said the tax was too exorbitant as they were failing to get that much per month.
“We are not making much as business is generally slow as you can witness here, so to imagine that we have to pay $1 500 quarterly is disturbing and unfair.
“We spend the whole day sometimes doing completely nothing and they want the money anyway,” she said.
She said what was surprising them most was why restaurants and pubs were only paying presumptive tax of $100 when their business is the one that was performing better than theirs.
“Zimra must do their homework and come up with charges that are reasonable and I feel there is need for proper examination so they need to take this issue step by step to afford us an existence,” Miss Nathanson said.
Some salons said they were not even paying this fee as they do not have money to pay to Zimra due to the slow trends business wise.
“In as much as we want to abide to the law and pay this tax we do not have the money and as you know most employees are being paid little hence coming to the hair salon has become a luxury not a necessity hence deterioration of our markets.
“Rents are quite exorbitant due to the high utility charges making it difficult to have an accommodating working environment,” they said.
Miss Nathanson called on the relevant authorities to register hair salons as companies so that they pay company taxes.
“Maybe if we were to register as companies we would pay taxes as companies and I think we could be paying relatively low,” she said.