Tendai Ruben Mbofana
However, its relentless, predatory taxation of ordinary citizens has now reached a breathtakingly absurd nadir.
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The Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) recently issued a reminder regarding the payment of “special excise duty” on the change of ownership of second-hand motor vehicles, enforced under section 172BB(1)(b) of the Customs and Excise Act.
However, this demand is far more than a mere administrative nuisance.
It is an unmitigated fiscal shakedown that exposes a regime suffering from an insatiable thirst for its citizens’ hard-earned money.
To fully grasp the perversity of this demand, one must understand what an excise duty actually is.
In standard economic logic and global practice, excise duty is a tax levied at the point of manufacture or initial importation.
This is primarily targeted at specific commodities such as alcohol, tobacco, fuel, or luxury goods.
Its goal is either to deter harmful consumption or to capture revenue when a new asset enters the national economy.
Yet in Zimbabwe, a vehicle that was imported a decade ago, which paid exorbitant customs duty, surtax, and value-added tax at the port of entry, is subjected to a brand-new “excise duty” simply because one citizen sells it to another.
This is economic fraud masquerading as tax policy.
It is a double-dipping monstrosity that treats an already existing, pre-taxed domestic asset as if it were a newly manufactured vice commodity being birthed into the economy for the first time.
Consider the sheer financial cruelty of the prescribed rates.
A struggling citizen who scrimps and saves to buy a ten-year-old, small-engine hatchback for basic family transport is confronted with an arbitrary tax demand of $200.
In a country where the formal economy has collapsed, millions survive in the precarious margins of the informal sector, where a second-hand car is often a tool for basic survival rather than a luxury.
Yet, ZIMRA demands hundreds of United States dollars just to change a name on a piece of paper.
To make matters infinitely worse, ZIMRA couples this extortionate tax with draconian penalties.
The threat of a 30 percent penalty on unpaid special excise duty, accompanied by astronomical annual interest rates, is calculated to destroy livelihoods.
Innocent buyers often purchase a vehicle only to discover that a previous owner failed to pay this absurd tax.
They are subsequently held hostage, trapped with compounding debts and threatened with an inability to renew vehicle licenses or travel freely.
Where else on earth does a government operate with such shameless rapacity against its own people?
In civilized jurisdictions, changing ownership of a motor vehicle is recognized for what it is.
It is a routine administrative update managed by public transport registries for a nominal fee aimed simply at covering processing costs.
Where transfer taxes exist internationally, they are modest percentages calculated on transparent market value, not flat-rate “excise” punishments designed to penalize ownership.
Overseas, governments seek to make vehicle registration seamless and affordable to ensure public safety and accurate legal records.
In Zimbabwe, the state builds massive financial barricades around legal compliance, effectively driving citizens into non-compliance and informal arrangements out of sheer financial self-preservation.
This policy has nothing to do with building the nation or expanding the tax base through equitable, sustainable growth.
It is the desperate, parasitic behavior of a governance structure that has squandered productive economic capacity and now survives by picking the pockets of its impoverished populace.
By turning a routine title transfer into a financial bloodbath, the state is actively strangling mobility, sabotaging micro-commerce, and punishing every Zimbabwean who dares to strive for a better life.
It is time to call this policy what it truly is: an unconscionable legislative shakedown.
The government must dismantle this predatory tax regime before its relentless squeeze leaves the public with nothing left to give.
- Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com