ZRA rakes in K8.7bn from tax assessments in mining sector

OVER K8.7 billion has been raised from the mining sector through tax assessments audits by the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) between 2018 and 2023.

And the ZRA has warned of making tough recommendations for players in the emerald sector who are not tax compliant, particularly for those who do it deliberately.

These announcements were made by the ZRA Commissioner-General, Mr Dingani Banda, at a media briefing on Building Capacity to Regulate the Mining Sector: 2006 – 2024 Reforms from a Tax Administration Perspective.

On the tax assessments audits, Mr Banda pointed out that more than K8.7 billion had been realised between 2018 and 2023.

“If we were to show you some of the tax assessment that have been done from the mining sector from 2018 ... over a six-year period…we have raised tax assessments arising from these audits of K8.7 billion from 2018 to 2023.

“Of course, we do have about 39 cases where there are pending outstanding objections from the mining sector but these are only to a tune of K1.9 billion,” he said.

Mr Banda, among other issues, also talked about the need to bring sanity in the emeralds sector as most players were not tax compliant.

He was concerned that despite Zambia being one of the top emerald producers in the world, the country had not benefitted from it in terms of taxes.

Mr Banda warned that ZRA would be making tough recommendations on this issue to derive value for the benefit of the country.

“You look at our numbers, we have over 400 taxpayers registered from this sector, 99 percent of revenues comes from just two mines, emeralds, just two. So, we need to bring sanity, with an automated system we’ll see who has a licence, are they reporting production, are they paying mineral royalty and so forth.

“We will have all those controls enhanced and as ZRA, we will be making tough recommendations on this because we need to derive value for the benefit of the country from these resources,” he said.

He, however, mentioned that: “our desire is to have voluntary compliance. If you have challenges in paying and it is very clear, the law has empowered the Commissioner-General to enter into a deferment plan.