The Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) says it is hopeful that the decentralization of registration platforms will help to increase compliance of Tax Payer Identification Numbers (TPIN) registrations.
Commissioner General Kingsley Chanda said the ZRA intends to work with financial institutions and other statutory corporations to increase the number of tax payers’ registration.
Mr. Chanda was speaking shortly after he announced extension of the TPIN registration to 30th June 2019 at Taj Pamozi Hotel in Lusaka today.
“Banks have given us feedback that we are currently at around 61 percent compliance and as such transactions with ZESCO, RTSA, and Ministry of Lands will require the presentation of TPIN certificates before they can be processed as per requirement by law.” he said.
He said the authority is confident that these initiatives will help meet the projected target of 100 percent compliance.
And Mr. Chanda stressed that the extension of TPIN registration only applies to account holders who opened their accounts prior to 1st January 2017.
He added that extensions of TPIN registrations have seen an increasing number of people registering, having started from as low as 10 percent.
Meanwhile ZRA Commissioner – Modernization & Corporate Strategy Dingani Banda said ZRA has embarked on developments aimed at making all tax payer services available on mobile phone features such as the Unstructured Supplementary Services Data (USSD) technology.
“We want to bring a full range of our services such filling of returns and electronically registration of TPIN which are now are being accessed on websites on mobile phones by simply dialing *858*,” Mr. Banda said.
Mr. Banda disclosed that tax payers will be able to register for TPIN in the second quarter of 2019 and pledged to work with payment providers to achieve this cause.