ZVISHAVANE-BASED informal traders besieged the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) offices yesterday demanding a stop to forced closure of their businesses for failing to remit taxes, saying it was contributing to increasing unemployment and poverty in the mining town.
ALLIEWAY NYONI OWN CORRESPONDENT
Over 32 small-to-medium enterprise (SME) operators stormed Zimra offices and submitted a petition against the revenue authority saying its stance defeated the purpose of ZimAsset that encourages support for SMEs to help create employment.
The Midlands’ SMEs provincial secretary-general Bigboy Murenga complained that a number of small businesses had closed shop in Zvishavane due to the Zimra clampdown and vowed to fight until a tax that best suited SMEs was crafted.
“The SME sector is different from corporate companies in the sense that most informal traders are not formally registered,” said Murenga.
“In order for Zimra to obtain revenue from us, it has to understand how we operate and then it can come up with a good strategy that is best suited for all parties involved. ZimAsset focuses on empowering the people and Zimra is chasing those people away, so is the government empowering and disempowering people at the same time?”
Informal traders demanded that Zimra do away with income and presumptive taxes as the two were very expensive and crippled the continuity of their businesses.
“We are prepared to pay tax to the government, but what we need is a good product (tax) that gives SMEs the opportunity to grow,” said Zvishavane Vendors’ Association leader Juma Banda.
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“How do we grow when they take everything that we would have worked for? They are simply telling us to close down.”
The group said besides Zimra, the National Social Security Authority and National Employment Council were eyeing the same profit informal traders in the small mining town made, making their survival untenable.
They complained that Zvishavane rentals were very high because of few property investors, which further compounded their woes.
Zimra’s corporate communications officer Taungana Ndoro said they were working on an appropriate response.
