alphonse munyika

[alphonse munyika @AMunyika]

@SABCNews why.

[alphonse munyika @AMunyika]

@FabrizioRomano so now diving is a mistake

[Joyce Meyer @JoyceMeyer]

Last year, you helped provide 5 million meals to children in Zimbabwe.

This May, we have the chance to do it again.

When you give, you’re not just feeding a child—you’re sharing hope and showing the love of Christ in a real, tangible way.

Join us in filling the silos again. Give today at https://t.co/rknOQjjtAN #FillTheSilos #HandOfHope

[Ted Cruz @tedcruz]

This is extraordinary.

And powerful. 🙏

[Techzim @Techzim]

Digital Services Tax Update: ZIMRA Admits Major Problems On The Ground

ZIMRA explained how Zimbabwe’s new Digital Services Withholding Tax is supposed to work, on record. That should have been a good thing. But if you listen carefully to what was said, you find out that they really don’t have any answers or solutions.

The clarification Zimra gave doesn’t solve the concerns we’ve all been raising since the tax was introduced. It confirms them.

The Questions People Asked From Day One

When the Digital Services Tax was announced, a few obvious questions came up immediately.

The first was double taxation. Many of the foreign digital services they are targeting already charge 15 % VAT. Now they have introduced a 15% digital services tax being collected locally through banks.

Without a clear way to make sure those two don’t overlap, we knew what would happen: people would pay twice.

The second was platforms that sell both goods and services. Digital platforms don’t fit neatly into boxes. Amazon is a good example.

A single Amazon payment could be for a physical product, Amazon Prime, music streaming, cloud services, or a mix of all of them. If the tax only applies to services, banks would need to know what you’re paying for.

The third issue was who carries the burden when things aren’t clear. Banks are expected to withhold the tax, but banks don’t see invoices from global platforms with all the items listed.

Even if they can’t tell what a payment was for, they still have to withhold 15%, which means it all falls on the customer to prove they shouldn’t have been taxed.

These are the real scenarios on the ground.

What ZIMRA Has Now Said

In a recent interview, ZIMRA explained that the Digital Services Tax applies to imported electronic services provided by companies based outside Zimbabwe. Physical goods, they said, are not subject to the tax. I’m sure we all understand this by now.

Zimra clarified that the tax is paid by the person receiving the service in Zimbabwe, not the foreign company. So, they are not even targeting the foreign companies with this tax, just you. As quoted by The Herald, Zimra Head of Technical Services for Domestic Taxes, Mr Mathias Chinanayi, said:

"This is not a tax on the supplier. The tax on the supplier is dealt with separately under the Income Tax Act, where a five per cent tax is charged on the gross income earned by the foreign supplier. The digital services tax, however, is paid by the person receiving the service in Zimbabwe."

So yeah, the supplier is taxed separately; there already is a mechanism for that. This new Digital Services tax is so that you don’t go scot free either. You gotta pay Mthuli for the privilege of using Microsoft 365.

So far, so clear.

But ZIMRA also acknowledged something else: that “operational challenges remain.” Specifically, they pointed to problems where foreign service providers are already charging VAT, and to the difficulty of separating goods from services on complex online platforms. The exact concerns people were raising.

They added that “work is ongoing to refine the framework and bring consistency and certainty.”

That admission makes it all worse.

Why This Isn’t Comforting

Saying that a tax will be refined after it has already been implemented isn’t reassuring, especially when real money is involved.

When VAT and the Digital Services Tax stack together, people end up paying 30% in taxes. That’s not a small inconvenience. It affects how expensive software is, how schools operate, and how businesses function day to day.

The goods-versus-services problem also isn’t some rare thing that can be ignored for now. The biggest e‑commerce platforms in the world sell both.

To acknowledge that this is difficult and then move on is to admit that the most common real-world case still doesn’t have a clear answer.

This is what people mean when they say this whole policy feels half-baked.

It’s Not Really a ZIMRA Problem

It’s also important to be fair about where responsibility sits.

ZIMRA’s job is to administer and collect taxes, not to design policy. They work with what the Ministry of Finance puts into law.

If implementation is this messy, we are forced to ask: was ZIMRA properly consulted when this tax was being drafted? Because if they were, these issues would have been obvious long before the tax was thrown onto the public.

Either that consultation didn’t happen, or the warnings weren’t taken seriously. After all, it’s even more revenue collected until its sorted. Which is what I suspect happened. Neither is good.

So, really, it’s Mthuli and company that we should be looking to for an explanation. Why was a half-baked policy allowed to pass, when it is double taxing people on the ground, whilst the tax enforcement arm admits they are still trying to figure out how not to do that?

Tweak-As-You-Go Policy

Rolling out a tax and then saying the framework will be refined later means we are all paying while the government figures things out. Meaning all the risk and administrative burden is placed on the public.

For something as sensitive as taxation, that’s not how it should work.

They should solve the hard problems first, then implement. Not the other way around.

https://t.co/TWPUtqJFrd

[Mange Kimambi 🇹🇿🇺🇸 @mangekimambi]

She shot and killed over 10,000 of her fellow Tanzanians to retain power.

Sixty days after an election she claims to have won with 98% of the vote, she is still living in hiding and only appearing in heavily controlled environments. She sends her ministers to represent her abroad instead of appearing herself, fearing to meet the same fate she imposed on Tanzanian youth.

Justice is coming, and when it does, everyone who chose to remain silent during our suffering should remain silent then as well. Hatutaki unafki…….

[Ben Rhodes @brhodes]

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.” - Gandhi

[Tebogo Mahlangu @ST_Mahlangu]

@Sophie_Mokoena He will disagree with CIC Julius Malema 🤣😇

[alphonse munyika @AMunyika]

@LadyKuda imbomirai zvemainterview. makuda kuti avhurike futi? 😂

[Timothy Keller (1950-2023) @timkellernyc]

It was not good for man to be alone BEFORE the Fall in Genesis 3. This means that before sin entered the world, the need for community was part of our perfection. It is not a product of our imperfection.

[alphonse munyika @AMunyika]

@cb_doge 0p0

[alphonse munyika @AMunyika]

@SuccessMoyo29 @KudzieKadzombe @crimewatchzw Is that what happened in this case?

[alphonse munyika @AMunyika]

@footballtweet @DeadlineDayLive Zidane should coach other clubs then we see

[alphonse munyika @AMunyika]

@FabrizioRomano After losing twice? What's the point then of being the best team

[alphonse munyika @AMunyika]

@SkySportsWSL Barca femeni clearly playing on another level. Eyeing a quadruple and getting thrashed 8-2 is crazy

[Daily Loud @DailyLoud]

CRAZY! A humpback whale in Chile swallowed a kayaker before quickly releasing him �

[alphonse munyika @AMunyika]

@SkySportsWSL 1

[alphonse munyika @AMunyika]

@premierleague @SpursOfficial @ChelseaFC L

Lll

[Colin Wright @SwipeWright]

Tacitus on the relationship between regulations and corruption.💡

[alphonse munyika @AMunyika]

@KemiBadenoch @Conservatives This is too funny