What to expect from the budget

JOHAN NEL

With the budget speech expected to be tabled on Thursday by finance minister Iipumbu Shiimi, it can be said that there is a sense of excitement along with a sense of anxiety amongst the business community. The reason for this is that the hope is that some clarity will be provided on some of the long-awaited tax amendments. The proposed amendments have been in the public domain for quite some time and taxpayers (both corporate and individuals) are keen to understand more on the dates of implementation and the possible impact on their business and/ or individual pockets.

Some the amendments that we believe should be discussed are the following:

-The introduction of a local withholding tax on dividends

-Increase in the threshold of tax allowable deductions to pension funds, retirement funds and study policies

-Debt: equity ratio for thin capitalisation

-The taxing of trusts and the possibility of different types of trusts being subject to different tax rates

-VAT on asset management fees

-Zero rating of sanitary products

We hope that the above amendments would need to be communicated well in advance before their effective date as some of the changes required to deal with the complexity of the implications are far reaching and can seriously impact on the way that businesses operate. This is especially true for the financial services sector that will need to change and update reporting systems to account for withholding tax on dividends that may apply to payments made to investors.

We expect further that over the MTEF, there might be an upside in revenue that could arise from the activities driven by the NIPD in terms of attracting investment into Namibia. We believe that the opportunities are there to grow the Namibian economy and can further be strengthened with policy implementation, aligned to these initiatives. With these considerations, we expect Namibia’s gross domestic product (GDP) can increase significantly over the next three to five years

With the ever-increasing focus on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) on the global stage, we would welcome inputs from the Ministry of Finance with regards to the introduction of standards for reporting on ESG. This could further enhance Namibia as an investment destination where sound policies are in place for international investors to report on, as these are often a requirement from global private equity players when they invest into new projects and investments.