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The Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) claims it is now disbursing K2.2 billion in Value Added Tax (VAT) refunds every month as part of efforts to restore efficiency in the system while sealing revenue leakages linked to non-compliance and fraud.
ZRA Commissioner-General, Dingani Banda, said the Authority had scaled up VAT refunds even as it works to improve compliance, stressing that VAT remained one of the top contributors to national revenue when both domestic and port collections are considered.
“We cannot wait until VAT is fully compliant for us to pay back refunds. We moved from paying K800 million in 2021, then to K1.35 billion, last year we moved to K1.7 billion. And this year, every month, we are refunding K2.2 billion, even as we are fixing the problem of VAT compliance. So these are the metrics that you have to take into context,” he said.
Banda was speaking during the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants (ZiCA) post-2026 budget meeting in Lusaka.
He admitted that VAT compliance remained a serious challenge, citing leakages and fraud. Out of about 21,000 registered taxpayers, only 40 percent were compliant for a long time.
“Zambia is not an exception to VAT fraud. We have had a history of very serious frauds happening in this country, and that has been a major source of leakages. We are now looking at how to drive compliance while addressing the backlog and sealing revenue losses,” he said.
Banda added that ZRA is leveraging smart invoicing data and had intensified prosecutions of companies involved in VAT fraud, as part of reforms aimed at tightening the tax net and safeguarding revenue.
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