THE Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) has begun consultations, collecting input for submissions into the 2016 National Budget, which Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa is next month expected to present in the National Budget.
BY TARISAI MANDIZHA
Speaking at the ZNCC pre-2016 National Budget seminar in Harare yesterday, the organisation’s past president, Luxon Zembe said the objective of the private sector input in the 2016 Budget was to come up with national priorities to address the needs of the people.
“The objective is to come up with our national priorities and what we see as priorities to address the fundamentals to critical issues that have relevance and we are guided by our national strategy, as a country and Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (ZimAsset) is the country’s national strategy,” he said.
Zembe said the input should be guided by ZimAsset and the government’s 10-point plan.
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He said Zimbabwe has so far made positive strides on the external debt and re-engagement with the international financial institutions.
Tax Management Services managing director, Tendai Mavima said there was need for the business community to repackage and align themselves on tax issues before presenting their input to government.
Mavima said the input should be packaged and presented in line with the government’s economic plan.
“If we don’t package our arguments very well, our arguments will not be meaningful, let’s argue, present and package looking at the 10-point plan. Currently government says they are promoting small-to-medium enterprises and most of us are SMEs. Government should also give tax holidays to the SMEs, as this has a lot of benefits in the future. SMEs will employ more people and this will increase demand and government will also get its tax through pay as you earn,” he said.
Mavima said there was need to strengthen local companies by creating a level playing field and opportunities for everyone.
He added that Zimbabwe is one of the highly taxed nations while industry was currently operating at 36% capacity.
“Let’s rethink and come up with a developmental tax sphere which will create development for the whole nation,” Mavima said.