MRA touts reforms for beating target
Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) has touted reforms for instilling discipline in the collection of appropriate taxes, making the tax collection agency to beat its monthly target by about K7 billion.
A published tax revenue outturn for September 2016 shows that MRA surpassed its monthly revenue target of K52.3 billion by about 13 percent by collecting K58.98 billion.
MRA has attributed the overall positive tax variance to its initiatives such as the automated systems customs data (Asycuda) World, which is helping to instill discipline in the collection of appropriate taxes.
The report shows that cumulatively, during the first quarter of 2016/17 fiscal year, MRA collected K179.7 billion against a projection of K164.5 billion, which gives an excess collection of K15.4 billion.
“The good performance for the months is as a result of positive variance in pay as you earn [Paye], import value added tax [VAT], domestic VAT, import excise and non-resident tax [NRT],” reads the report in part.
According to MRA, in August, K27.53 billion was collected under income and profit, representing a surplus of eight percent over the projection of K25.39 billion.
The public tax collector said on account of payment of bonuses by some companies and payment of tax arrears, Paye registered a surplus of 15 percent of the K15.75 percent billion target at K18.14 billion.
The report further indicates that MRA collected a total of K19.8 billion million VAT also overperformed its monthly target of K16.19 billion by 23 percent.
According to MRA, Domestic VAT overperformed by K1.3 billion while Import VAT surpassed its target by 2.4 billion.
“The performance in domestic VAT could be attributed to positive yields from the Lisiti Langa Campaign, which empowers the consumers to be demanding fiscal receipts from the sellers of goods while removal of some customs procedure codes has contributed to increase in import VAT,” the report said.
Last month, MRA also beat its target by 112 percent, collecting by K58.8 billion against its projection of K52.6 billion.
Tax expert Emmanuel Kaluluma in an interview commended MRA for beating its target and hoped the trend will continue.
The positive performance is in line with Minister of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Goodall Gondwe’s sentiments in the 2016/17 budget statement on tax measures, which he said will help to broaden the tax base and improve tax administration to support domestic resource mobilisation for the 2016/17 budget.
