Online Reporter
Wallace Ruzvidzo-Herald Reporter
ZIMBABWE has surpassed its tax revenue collection target for the first quarter of the year, with its revenue agency Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) collecting US$1,5 billion.
Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube reported to Cabinet recently that tax and non-tax revenue collection exceeded first quarter targets, showing progress under National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1)’s Economic Growth Pillar.
“In terms of the Economic Growth pillar of the National Development Strategy 1, the Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion highlighted that the mobilisation of tax revenue and Non-Tax Revenue has surpassed the first quarter target,” said Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Dr Jenfan Muswere during the subsequent post-Cabinet media briefing.
In the 2025 National Budget, Prof Ncube projected revenue collections at ZiG270,3 billion, equivalent to approximately US$7,5 billion.
Expenditure for the period is forecast to be ZiG276,4 billion.
To enhance revenue collection, Prof Ncube proposed several new tax categories to widen the tax base.
Some of the tax measures included the review of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) regimes, the introduction of a 10 percent withholding tax (WHT) on gross winnings of sports betting punters, the introduction of a fastfoods tax at a rate of 0,5 percent on the sales value and the reintroduction of duty on selected medical products.
Zimra is targeting to collect at least US$7,155 billion tax revenue this year, representing a 17 percent increase from the 2024 target.
“The first quarter target was at US$1,502 billion which is an equivalent of ZiG$40,32 billion.
“We therefore collected US$1,506 billion between January and March, indicating that we are on course to achieve over US$7,15 billion or over ZiG$220 billion target by December this year,” said Zimra Commissioner General, Ms Regina Chinamasa in a recent interview with the national broadcaster ZBC.
Zimra is the Government’s revenue collection agency mandated to assess, collect revenue, facilitate trade and travel, and enforce the payment of taxes, levies, royalties and duties for the country.
Meanwhile, under the Economic Growth and Stability Pillar, the Tax and Revenue Management System is being implemented in three phases and has achieved the completion of the Release 1 Core Fronted processes and Release 2 Tax Agent Module.
“The Release 3 Back-end processes 4 of 5 were also successfully implemented, although the system integration and Risk Compliance Management Module is still in progress,” said Minister Muswere.
Under the Fiscalisation processes, internal integration with three banks is in progress, while external integration is ongoing with five Government departments.
“The User acceptance testing of the Risk Compliance Management Module Phase 1 is now complete, and Phase 2 is ongoing.
“The Business Intelligence Reporting project is on course, while the launch of the Single Account Automatic Re-opening is in progress,” said Dr Muswere.
