FFTUZ bemoans workers' perpetual tax burden

FFTUZ bemoans workers' perpetual tax burden
By Misheck Wangwe in Kitwe
Mon 11 Oct. 2010, 14:00 CAT

FEDERATION for Free Trade Unions of Zambia (FFTUZ) president Joyce Nonde-Simukoko has said Zambian workers will continue going through the anguish of being overtaxed. Commenting on the 2011 budget presented to Parliament on Friday by finance minister Situmbeko Musokotwane, Nonde-Simukoko said the budget had clearly indicated that formal workers would continue carrying the heavy burden of paying tax.

She said the increment in Pay As You Earn (PAYE) exempt threshold from K800,000 to K1,000,000 would never be felt because the relief was too little. Nonde-Simukoko said the government had failed to broaden the tax base to capture the informal sector and foreign investors who had been placed on tax holiday.

“Our expectations were that the Minister of Finance will explore ways of ensuring that the informal sector is captured in terms of revenue collection because we have been calling on government to broaden the tax base for a long time now. We have investors who have been on tax holiday for a long time and they are making a lot of money and externalising their profits and government is doing nothing. So workers in the country will continue going through the anguish of being overtaxed,” Nonde-Simukoko said.

She said it would be difficult for the labour movement in the country to negotiate properly for salary increments because of the government’s failure to give reasonable tax relief to workers in the formal sector.


Nonde-Simukoko said it was disappointing that the government had failed to give tangible reasons why it was finding it difficult to broaden the tax base and to give sufficient relief to workers in the country.

She said the only way Zambians would get meaningful empowerment was by broadening the tax base and giving enough relief to workers who were currently being heavily taxed.

Nonde-Simukoko further said workers in the education sector were owed huge sums of money by the government but the allocation for domestic debt was not enough.