A latest Paying Taxes Report jointly released by the World Bank and audit and business advisory firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has rated Malawi 102 out of 190 economies in the ease of paying taxes.
This is the same ranking Malawi got last year, which measures and assesses the ease of paying taxes in 190 economies.
For each economy under study, four indicators are assessed and these are costs of all taxes borne by a country (total tax rate), time to comply with tax obligations, the number of tax payments made and the post-filing index, which looks at obtaining a value added tax (VAT) refund and correcting a corporate income tax return and dealing with any corresponding tax audits.
Reads the report in part: “In some economies, businesses are only allowed to claim a cash refund after rolling over the excess credit for a specified period of time.
“In Albania, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, the Gambia, Lesotho, Malawi and St. Lucia, businesses must carry forward the excess input VAT for three months before a cash refund can be given.”
According to the report, Malawi scored 34.5 percent tax rate made up of profit taxes (20.4 percent), labour taxes (12.4 percent) and other taxes at 1.4 percent, which is 7.6 percentage points below the 42.1 percent regional average.
In terms of time to comply with tax obligations, Malawi came 10th on the continent with compliance time of 178 hours, three hours up from 2016 index, beating Comoros at 100 hours and the continent’s average of 307 hours.
Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) has attributed its improved performance to reforms championed by the Public Service Reforms Commission coupled with staff commitment and dedication to work.
MRA deputy director (corporate affairs) Steven Kapoloma said the sustained improvement in tax compliance by taxpayers has also been a positive development. n
