THE Road Transport and Safety Agency (RTSA) raked in K5.6 billion in carbon emission tax in January when the agency started collecting on behalf of the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA).
ZRA commissioner for customs Muyangwa Muyangwa said in Lusaka yesterday that the authority itself collected K1.8 billion, although this was just new car entries through the border posts.
Mr Muyangwa said the use of RTSA for collecting the carbon emission tax had proved effective just in the first month of administering the taxation through that point, noting that the move was a wise decision.
“We have actually noted good collection through RTSA, which brought in far much higher than what we collected ourselves in that month,” he said.
The carbon tax was introduced in 2006 and the ZRA had been collecting the tax only from border points when vehicles are imported into Zambia or on transit, but the authority was not following up the vehicles to pay the annual tax.
The Government later decided that RTSA starts collecting the tax from all inland vehicles at the time motorists were renewing their road taxes.
Mr Muyangwa said compliance had been overwhelming because the system was working well to capture all cars registered in Zambia.
He said though there were challenges in the collection, because RTSA was currently only issuing receipts to the motorists, ZRA and RTSA were currently working out mechanisms to have the tax reflect on the road licence disc itself.
“We are still working on the procedures, so that by next year it will be reflected on the same disc for road tax instead of RTSA issuing receipts or issuing separate discs,” he said.
The Government has included revenue collected from motorists through the carbon emission tax in this year’s Budget, but has not mentioned which projects it would implement using the proposed K30.7 billion to be raised from the tax.
A carbon emission tax is an environmental tax on emissions of carbon dioxide, as the gas is considered to be a heat trapping ‘greenhouse gas’ and the purpose of a carbon tax is to protect the environment by penalising emissions of carbon dioxide, which may cause global warming.
[Times of Zambia]
Just use all of it to improve the roads ,then we can have more cars and they can collect even more carbon tax . ……….This is a strange tax indeed. Is carbon tax meant to reduce global warming ? is it meant to discourage people from buying cars ? ……..I doubt if carbon tax will help prevent floods or drought ….:o
hoping the money realized will not just end up financing the Brazil trip.
If you keep allowing 10 year old cars to be imported into Zambia you will never stop greenhouse gases.
Start producing a solar powered car and show the world what you can do.
I don’t think this money will be used for the intended purpose. Most of this money will be used to finance trips for our absentee president, sorry I mean ceremonial president. Part of it will be misappropriated and when the Auditor General raises issues nothing will happen.
Good timing for theannouncement. MMD will get all that and channel it to the coming by-elections an of course to charter planes for …’you-know-who?’
The money will used for the “Global Government”. Welcome to 1984 Zambia.:)>-
Sha moneka sha ma by election campaigns
carbon tax on cars ?. Even France has suspended most provisions of this scheme. This is just a way of GRZ fleecing the importers.
That ise a good collection for a quarter. I want to suggest, though, that this massive revenue from motorist should free the tax on fuel. Expensive fuel is responsible for unever ending poverty in our country. Try to play with these economic variables and reduce poverty please!!!!.
K5.6 Billion: K5 billion will go to remunerations and only K0.6 billion will go for projects. Of the K0.6 sent to projects, 0.3 billion will be spent on some feasibility study, 0.2 billion for consultancy and only 0.1 billion will do some work which wont be completed for lack of funds…..thanx so much RATSA you are hard working….we love you so much…..my foot!
This tax doesnt make any sense at all!how do they know how much carbon my car emits when they dont know the age of the car, service record and stuff like that?and how about the Mines and other industries that emit so much more carbon than my small car?We are so burdened with taxes in zambia and yet the income earned doesnt correspond!will the Challenger Jet also pay carbon tax?
This is just daylight robbery. The money will end up in someone’s pockets as it won’t be accounted for. It is unfortunate in this country that you have to bear the brunt of government taxes just for owning a second hand Japanese car. We must stand up and make government accountable for the taxes we pay. look at the road infrastracture in Zambia it is terrible but we keep on paying. more taxes.
IF ROADS ARE NOT IMPROVED I WILL GO TO PRISON BECAISE i
Zambians need to know how this huge amount is going to be spent.
:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:((:(( hmm nikatwishi
That tax is long overdue. There are a lot of smoking cars on the Zambian roads. But I think the solution here does not rely on taxing them but on impounding them and released after due verification that such cars do not fume any more. Now its like RTSA is allowing smoking vehicles on the road even if they are smoking. This defeats the whole purpose of reducing carbon emission. RTSA is more interested in makig hefty money.Furthermore, not only motorists should be taxed but cigarette smokers should equally be taxed by raising the price of cigaretes with a certain amount going to tackle environmental issues. Zambia just ran into this wagon of carbon tax without planning how the money will be used to tackle carbon emmission and Mr.Muyangwa does not answer that. The money is there so what next?