07 Mar 2018

Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Kenneth Matambo has indicated that the Botswana income tax regime is a progressive tax system, therefore those who earn more are subjected to higher tax rates.

Responding to a question in Parliament, Mr Matambo said the progressive tax system was one way of ensuring that wealthier taxpayers contribute more to government revenue than the less wealthy ones.

In addition, he stated that rates that were paid to local authorities by those who own immovable properties were a form of wealth tax, even though they were currently payable only in urban areas and were not collected by Botswana Unified Revenue Service.

Minister Matambo said his ministry considered the current taxation of wealth through taxing of income to be sufficient to generate revenue for government without over-burdening taxpayers, hence there were no plans to further charge more tax on the wealth of Botswana taxpayers than they were currently been charged.

He noted that there were other ways of adequately addressing any inequalities using the tax system, which included government subsidies to some sectors of the economy such as agriculture as well as funds that government avails to finance projects undertaken by some under privileged members of the society like youth and women.

Minister Matambo was responding to a question by Selebi Phikwe West Member of Parliament, Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse, who had asked the minister to state if his ministry had any plans to introduce wealth tax as inter alia a solution to worsening inequalities and boosting government tax collection or revenue in the foreseeable future. ENDS