By Wezzie Gausi:
The Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) has called upon all taxpayers to continue contributing their fair share of taxes voluntarily in order to optimise revenue collection.
This is coming at a time the authority has surpassed its July revenue collection target by K15 billion but missed its 2024-25 first quarter target by K91.629 billion.
In an interview after a media training on Thursday in Lilongwe, MRA spokesperson Steven Kapoloma said they are confident of beating the financial year’s target of K3.26 trillion.
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“These taxes are used for development projects such as construction of roads, bridges, clinics, school blocks and markets, among others. Therefore, I cannot overemphasise the impact of tax compliance to the development of the nation.
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“We encourage those who failed to honour their tax liabilities in the first quarter to come forward and resolve their tax affairs with MRA so that we all positively contribute towards national development by paying our taxes voluntarily,” Kapoloma said.
Economist Marvin Banda said it should be noted that non-tax revenues continue to underperform, underscoring the difficulties government faces to supplement tax revenues.
He said even though the budget is facing an anticipated increase of 70 percent from foreign donors, any good performance of revenues is always outshadowed by the deficit that is realised from excessive debt-expenditures incurred during the course of the financial year.
