Former Finance Minister Tendai Biti on Thursday criticised the myriad of taxes imposed on the citizenry by the government without looking at the status of the taxpayer.
Biti, who is MDC Alliance Vice President and Harare East MP, said the current taxing regime is unprogressive, calling it an “uneven and unequal burden” on Zimbabweans.
Biti made the comments while debating on the Finance Bill in the House of Assembly on Thursday. He said:
Since 2017, the government has been intoxicated with a plethora of taxes that are very unprogressive.
A progressive tax regime is one that recognises the class status of the citizen, the inequality of the citizen.
However, the preponderance of finance minister (Mthuli Ncube) has been to impose taxes and to rely on taxes that place an uneven and unequal burden on the taxpayer, irrespective of the status of the taxpayer.
Debating on the same Bill, MDC-T’s Tapiwa Mashakada called on Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube to consider imposing high taxes on the mining sector if the country is to achieve its USD$12 billion economy.