Abstract:
The objectives of the research were understanding the implementation of the presumptive tax legislation in
Zimbabwe; establishing adequacy and competence of the personnel who administer the legislation and establishing
controls in place that administer the presumptive tax legislation. The research approach employed was chiefly qualitative
using the face to face interview method. More importantly, the rationale for choosing the qualitative approach was the
need to gain some understanding of how the current tax system in Zimbabwe is administered. Content analysis was
employed in analyzing interview responses. The study revelaed that since its creation, the presumptive tax legislation has
been operating in conjunction with other departments, which also cater for other taxes such as income tax, PAYE and
VAT. Due to the nature and fact that the presumptive tax clients do not pay significant amounts of taxes as compared the
large companies, it is difficult for the departments to lose one big chunk of revenue for many tiny chunks thus it is to fore
gore presumptive tax operators. However, this makes it easier for SMEs to evade taxation, as they are not getting
adequate attention to push them into paying tax. Thus the study recommends that a presumptive tax department should
be created which deals with presumptive tax clients from registration to collection of taxes and auditing of those
registered under presumptive tax as well.
