KALONDE NYATI, Lusaka
THE Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) will not be able to collect over K1 billion income taxes from the biggest tax payers which are the mines due to challenges the sector experienced, commissioner general Kingsley Chanda has said.
Mr Chanda explained that like other sectors, the mining sector was also hit with sudden volatility in the exchange rate resulting into low copper prices on the international market.
He told the media this week that 2016 had been a tough year for ZRA for various reasons including changes in macroeconomic environment.
“Sudden increase in the exchange rate made imports expensive. We also had challenges regarding copper prices as they were depressed most of the year”
“Our biggest tax contributor, the mining sector declared losses, so we had over K1 billion which has not come from the mining sector as company income tax and that has affected our performance,” he said.
Mr Chanda, however, said ZRA was confident that it would meet the targeted revenue collection for 2016.