At a meeting with journalists this Friday in Luanda, Finance Minister Vera Daves admitted loss of revenue from these tax changes, but hopes to recover the collection through other taxes, such as VAT.
The Government submits to the National Assembly "a set of diplomas that pursue the objective of ensuring the effective contribution of agents, assets and sectors of activity to improve the collection" of revenues and promote investment, said the minister.
“We want to ensure that companies have some treasury clearance to exercise their activity and make some investments at this time of greatest tightening, so that the executive signaled to AGT [Autoridade Geral Tributária] that we would have to reduce the industrial tax” went ahead.
Without detailing what the proposed value for these taxes, currently set at 30 percent, said that the objective is to reduce the rate “to the average of SADC" (Southern African Development Community).
"That would be our contribution to boosting economic activity, allowing for some loss of revenue and hoping that the investments that will be made and return via any other tax", namely VAT, a tax that the country adopted in October of the last year.
The executive also submitted a draft law to amend the Income Tax on Work (IRT), which aims to reformulate the rate table applicable to taxpayers' income on behalf of others, exempting the amounts up to 70,000 kwanzas.
“We intend to contribute to the sharing of sacrifices among citizens (…) by raising the threshold of exempt income from the current 34,450 kwanzas to 70,000 kwanzas and thus increasing the disposable income of a greater number of families and, on the other hand, increasing the progressiveness in higher yields”, she said.
The package also includes proposals to increase the tax on motor vehicles, starting to be taxed on recreational vessels and aircraft for private use, and exempt vehicles powered by electricity.
As for property tax, "the objective is to combine the detention and transfer of real estate in a single regime" and start taxing idle land or unproductive land, as well as unoccupied urban buildings, added Vera Daves.
The executive's proposed tax amendments have already been submitted to the National Assembly, pending the scheduling of the discussion.
The minister also referred that the Government is working on simplifying declarative models and the general tax code and also intends to proceed with the creation of a tax benefits code that aggregates “everything that should be the object of this type of benefits”.
