When Survival Becomes a Crime – ZRA’s War on the Struggling Poor
The Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) has recently urged citizens to report their neighbours who run small home shops, kantembas, or side businesses suspected of tax evasion. On paper, it sounds like a noble call for compliance. But in practice, it reeks of economic insensitivity and misplaced priorities.
At a time when the cost of living has hit unbearable levels, with basic goods and services slipping beyond the reach of ordinary citizens, this move feels like a crackdown on survival rather than on corruption. Zambians have been pushed by economic realities to start small backyard businesses, selling tomatoes, cooking oil, talk time, vegetables, and household essentials just to make ends meet. And now, the taxman wants the neighbour to become a snitch?
Let’s be clear: taxation is essential. It fuels hospitals, schools, and public infrastructure. But when the tax net starts hovering over struggling families who barely earn enough to buy a 25kg bag of mealie meal, we have a moral and policy problem. ZRA should not be the bulldog at the gates of poverty; it should be a bridge to economic empowerment.
Instead of weaponizing communities against each other, why not help these small businesses formalize through simplified tax education and incentives? Why not make compliance appealing rather than fear-driven? A mother selling fritters from her veranda is not the enemy of the state, she is a citizen responding to economic hardship.
What Zambia needs now is not intimidation, but inclusion. The informal sector is vast and full of potential. It can become a genuine source of national revenue but only if ZRA learns to nurture it, not suffocate it.
Encouraging citizens to spy on each other for a loaf of bread’s worth of earnings breeds mistrust in communities already under strain. It is not taxation; it is desperation disguised as policy.
If ZRA truly wants to expand the tax base, it must look upwards to those with real, taxable capacity. The luxury SUVs, the big tenders, the mines and the multimillion kwacha contracts that often escape proper scrutiny.
Targeting home kantembas won’t fix the national revenue shortfall. It will only make the poor poorer and the economy colder.
In a country where innovation and hustle are now acts of survival, the taxman should be a partner, not a predator.
©️ KUMWESU OPINION | October 17, 2025
Just pay your taxes, always complaining…!
ZRA are misdirecting their efforts. How much will it cost in administrative costs to go after the home tuntembas? The profit margins on these tuntembas is small and people are desperately trying to make ends meet.
ZRA should define a threshold earning for even turnover tax. It doesn’t make sense to go after small businesses with blazing guns.
Give Ceasar what belongs to Ceasar. Period….why do want to steal from the state like its yours? Just pay…
Cant have your cake and eat it…
So, how much does ZRA expect to realize from a kantemba? The gross profit from a kantemba cannot even pay the owner a salary or allowance! They know too well the thresholds for salaries.
ZRA and the government is now treading on dangerous grounds. Look at the 2026 budget, it is meant to milk more from the ordinary man, directly or indirectly. They even care less if or not it’s a year for elections, hey!
Reading an article by BOZ in Zambia Monitor headlined “BOZ warns of looming debt crisis amid souring credit access” makes sad reading. The bank that is meant to regulate lending institution is warning instead of correcting the situation. The article talks about the majority Zambians living on borrowed money. Instead of easing the lives of Zambians, they want to get even the little we have. For the first time in the history of this nation, gratuity is being taxed just like any income. I hope the incomes (in whatever form) for the MPs are taxed: quick to punish the ordinary, while sparing their skins!
Go and put the mines and our God-given minerals in order! That is where the real tax is. You do not even need to get your famous but unsustainable IMF loans.
Looks like the economist has failed us. Who else can we try?