Value Added Tax (General) (Amendment) Regulations, 2024 (No. 67)

The Minister of Finance has deleted the entire First Schedule to the Value Added Tax (General) Regulations, 2003 (S.I. 273 of 2003) and substituted a new one. This is the schedule of goods and services exempt from VAT, and the replacement restores a long list of everyday items after the narrowing done by S.I. 248 of 2023.

Part I, the exemption for supplies within Zimbabwe under section 11(j) of the Act, covers water supplied through a pipe for domestic use, domestic electricity, rates charged by a local authority, listed agricultural equipment and machinery, listed fuel and fuel products, ethanol fuel (2207.10.10), ZINARA road toll fees, tobacco sold on the auction floors and other unmanufactured tobacco, commission on auction tobacco sales, NatPharm ancillary storage, handling and distribution services, goods and services provided by the Medical Statutory Bodies, sanitary wear (menstrual cups, tampons, disposable napkins and sanitary towels), animal feed and stock licks, animal remedies, fertiliser, pesticides, plants, seed for cultivation, a long list of other goods and agricultural produce by commodity code, and goods and services supplied to the President.

Part II exempts imports under section 12(3). It covers goods for the exclusive use of foreign governments, diplomatic missions, the Head of State, former Heads of State and the Government of Zimbabwe under a duty free certificate; travellers' cheques and foreign currency bills of exchange; imported electricity; foreign fair, exhibition and tourism publicity; human remains; goods under an international carnet; goods temporarily imported under section 124 of the Customs and Excise Act; goods of no commercial value; and transit goods.

The commodity code lists that follow are where the household impact sits: milk and cream, fresh vegetables from tomatoes and onions to spinach and pumpkins, dried and frozen vegetables, sweet potatoes, bananas, avocados, mangoes, citrus, grapes, melons, apples, stone fruit, wheat and maize, wheat flour and maize meal in all pack sizes, groats and meals, soya beans, cotton seed, sugar cane, cooking oils of groundnut, sunflower, cotton seed and maize origin, margarine, cane sugar, plain bread, buns and rolls, salt, medicaments and pharmaceutical goods of headings 30.01 to 30.06, and wheelchairs and carriages for disabled persons. A further list exempts goods for use by physically challenged persons — braille publications, white canes, braille computer terminals, adapted steering controls, contact and corrective lenses, spectacle frames, orthopaedic appliances, hearing aids and braille watches. Imports by the Medical Statutory Bodies, sanitary wear, listed agricultural inputs and goods imported under a ministerial rebate are also exempt.

Section 3 reverses part of an earlier repeal: notwithstanding subsection 2 of S.I. 248 of 2023, sections 12 and 15 of the principal regulations are deemed never to have been repealed and subsist with effect from 1 January 2024. In practical terms the amendment is backdated to the start of the year even though it was gazetted on 9 February 2024.

Two internal cross-references in Part II do not line up with the renumbered Part I: paragraph (9) points to 'Part I paragraph 11' for sanitary wear, which is actually paragraph 14, and paragraph (10) points to 'paragraphs 12 to 17' for agricultural inputs, which sit at paragraphs 15 to 20. The descriptions make the intention clear, but importers should work from the descriptions and commodity codes rather than the cross-references.