ZIMRA Might Have Lost Millions Due to Slack Systems
ZIMRA, Zimbabwe's tax people, are in trouble. They might have lost millions of dollars because of their slack systems.
Now, they are facing a parliamentary investigation over some shady dealings and financial misconduct.
Reports have already exposed some corruption, misuse of funds, and breaking government laws.
It looks like they mishandled a bunch of revenue and didn't keep track of it properly. Some taxpayers were even charged penalties and interest when they should not have been.
The report also slammed ZIMRA for not following international accounting standards and for having a pretty useless online platform that could not handle lots of transactions.
This meant some businesses did not get charged penalties when they should have, which makes it hard for ZIMRA to do their job.
Oh, and they also messed up with temporary import permits (TIPs), so they could not keep track of them properly. It is a whole mess, and now they are in for a parliamentary grilling.
The report reads:
“Looking at unclassified deposits — an amount of ZWL$ 1.6 billion included on the Revenue Return was not receipted and the amounts were not allocated to any tax head by the end of December 2021.”
ZIMRA Might Have Lost Millions Due to Slack Systems
The report criticized ZIMRA for failing to adhere to International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 16 concerning the accounting of foreign currency-denominated leases.
“The Authority did not translate foreign-denominated leases using the interbank rate that was prevailing at the time of payment. In addition, lease modifications were not also accounted for as required.”
The ZIMRA e-service platform, operational since 2016, was also found deficient.
“The platform struggled to manage high volumes of transactions during peak periods of return submissions. Consequently, it failed to capture all returns submitted via email, which served as an alternative submission method.”
The document also noted weaknesses in the control of temporary import permits (TIPs).
“The Authority`s controls over TIPs were not water tight. As a result, there were 26 487 electronic temporary import permits that were issued and had expired and not acquitted as at December 31, 2022.
“In addition, the Authority issued 43 385 manual temporary import permits during the year, however, the report could not establish the number of manual TIPs that had expired due to weaknesses in the internal controls.
“The report could, therefore, not establish any potential duty in relation to expired TIPs that were not acquitted.”
