A Revenue Performance report for February 2016 that the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) released Thursday shows that cumulatively, tax revenue collected during 2015/16 financial year to date amounted to K 373.41 billion against a projection of K382.59 billion.
The figure represents a 98 percent collection. The report shows that last month, the revenue collecting body collected K44.27 billion, exceeding the target of K43.65 billion which represents 1.4 percent increase.
At K20.37 billion, income and profits tax exceeded its projection of K20.32 billion by K51.76 million, showing strong performance in all tax lines under this category.
According to the report, during the month, a total of K13.42 billion Pay As You Earn (Paye) tax was collected which is 4 percent above the monthly projection.
“The increase was attributed to salary adjustments by some employers to cushion their salaries and wages against the rising inflation,” the report reads.
In Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) and Non-Resident taxes (NRT), a combined total of K674.44 million of FBT and NRT over-performed its monthly projection of K578.87 million by 17 percent.
But there was less corporate tax collected as under this category a negative variance of 26 percent was recorded by a collection of K2.2 billion against a monthly target of K3 billion.
However, it was all positive news in the categories of goods and services, value added tax (VAT) and excise duties.
A total of K19.10 billion was collected from goods and services above a monthly target of K18.38 billion registering a surplus of 4 percent which has been attributed to over performance in all tax lines in this category.
At K15.05 billion, VAT over-performed its monthly target of K14.93 billion by 1 percent and import VAT exceeded its monthly target by 2 percent whilst domestic VAT underperformed by 1 percent.
At K4.05 billion, excise duties collected during the month under review were 17 percent above the target with local and import excise exceeding their monthly targets by 36 percent and 4 percent, respectively.
“The over performance was largely due to increased enforcement efforts and improved levels of taxpayers’ compliance,” the report reads.
It was, however, bad news in import duty and other taxes as at K4.4 billion, import duty registered a deficit of 6 percent below the monthly target of K4.68 billion while a 48 percent deficit was recorded by other taxes, against a target of K246.54 million.
The shortfall in other taxes was mainly due to under performance in all taxes, except turn over tax.
Leave a Reply