WITHHOLDING TAX ON BETTING REVENUE LESS THAN K4, 000 PER MONTH IS ILLEGAL

THROUGH your newspaper, we wish to address this to the Minister of Finance.

As the Green Party, we are extremely disheartened that your UPND Government has decided to indiscriminately decided to impose a 20 percent withholding tax on any amount won through betting, without regard to budgetary and constitutional imperatives.

We would like to remind you that all taxes in a given financial year must be approved by Parliament.

With respect to the 2021 Financial Year, Parliament directed that no revenue amounting up to K4, 000 should be subjected to any direct tax (see page 25 of the Budget Speech 2021).

This measure was taken by the previous administration to increase the disposal income of our people.

As the Green Party, we therefore demand that the indiscriminate measure your Government has taken to levy withholding tax should be withdrawn hence forth until you put in place a mechanism that ensures that only persons who cumulatively or singly win above K4, 000 in a given month are subjected to the withholding taxed.

If your Government will levy the withholding tax contrary to threshold approved by Parliament, then you will be contravening Article 199 of the Constitution of Zambia Amendment 2016 and thereby committing an illegality.

We remind you that you were elected on the ticket of rule of law and constitutionalism. It is too early for you to forget the election platform.

In this regard, we demand that you refund all persons that have been levied contrary to the Constitution and directives of Parliament.