Taxpayer charter will sharpen ZRA's service delivery, says Dr Bwalya
Taxpayer charter will sharpen ZRA's service delivery, says Dr BwalyaBy Chibaula Silwamba
Wednesday February 20, 2008 [03:00]
ZAMBIA Revenue Authority (ZRA) director of research and planning Dr Samuel Bwalya has said the taxpayer charter will enable people demand high quality and efficient delivery of services from ZRA within a stipulated period. Giving an overview of the taxpayer charter which ZRA will launch this Friday, Dr Bwalya said it would enforce and sharpen ZRA’s service delivery.
“This charter enables you the client to know what service you should expect from ZRA,” said Dr Bwalya in an interview on Monday. “For instance, tax registration, we are committing that we will undertake to complete the process of tax registration within three days. If you come to our advice centre with all the necessary documentations that we need, and you want to take a tax payer identification number, you are guaranteed that within three days it will be ready and if it’s not ready within three days you take us to task.”
He said in line with the charter, ZRA would undertake to pay a refund of Value Added Tax (VAT) claim within 30 days from the date of lodgment.
“We undertake to pay the income tax refunds within 45 days of submission of lodgment of an income tax return; customs refund (duty drawback, general, estreated deposits) - we undertake to pay the refund within 30 days from the date of lodgment; customs deposit refund (except refunds for estreated deposits) - we undertake to pay back the refund within 48 hours of submission of a refund claim; we undertake to process a clean customs declaration within one and half days,” Dr Bwalya explained. “We shall issue a tax clearance certificate within 48 hours upon receipt of an application; service efficiency – we undertake to attend to clients within 20 minutes of their arrival at the customer service centre; fairness – we undertake to allow our clients their right to appeal, inform them of their rights and obligations and treat them equitably and in accordance with the law; we undertake to provide clear information on tax matters; we undertake to acknowledge comments, complaints and queries within five working days of their receipts; we undertake to respond to all comments, complaints and queries within 14 days of their referral to the appropriate manager and we shall treat tax matters with privacy and confidentiality.”
Dr Bwalya said ZRA would be monitoring its performance according to the taxpayer charter on a quarterly basis and publicise the information. The ZRA and USAID through the Zambia Threshold Project partnered to come up with the taxpayer charter.
Labels: SAMUEL BWALYA, TAXATION, ZRA
posted by MrK @ 7:49 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home