The Finance Minister is in the process of presenting his mid-term budget before Parliament today. As part of his mid-term tweaks to the budget he has proposed that the tax-free threshold be raised from the current $2 000 ZWL to $5 000 ZWL. This means that employees will now only pay tax on amounts above $5 000ZWL. While this is a relief it is still woefully inadequate given the prices of items in shops.

Review the tax-free threshold from ZWL$ 2 000 to ZWL$ 5 000 per month 2) Adjustment of the tax bands to begin at ZWL$ 5 001 and end at ZWL$ 100 000, above which the Highest Marginal Tax rate of 40% will apply, with effect from 1 August 2020

The Poverty Datum Line passed the $5 000 ZWL mark months ago according to the government’s own data published through ZIMSTAT. Currently it probably stands north of $7 000 ZWL and probably is around the $8 000 ZWL mark given how prices keep rising. This means the goverment is essentially proposing that people who are living below the poverty datum line be taxed!

The Food Poverty Line #FPL for one person in April 2020 was $596.96 while that for an average household of five persons was $2,984.78 ZWL.
The Total Consumption Poverty Line #TCPL for one person during the same period (April 2020) was $1,485.16 while that for an average of five persons per household stood at $7,425.81
ZIMSTAT on Twitter back in April