Tax reprieve on the cards

MINISTER of finance and public enterprises Iipumbu Shiimi is expected to announce a tax reprieve for individual Namibians in the National Assembly on Wednesday.

This is if tax policy adjustments announced last year come to fruition.

PriceWaterhouseCooper (PWC) says if effected, the tax reprieve would likely see Namibia’s consumer purchasing power strengthened.

The expected adjustments include increasing the tax exemption threshold for individuals from N$50 000 to N$100 000.

“Firstly, for our employed Namibians this would imply that fewer would have to be registered for personal income tax when the threshold has been increased to N$100 000.

“The rest of the employees who are registered for income tax would then have more disposable income at hand, because individuals are being taxed at a sliding scale.

“So that would effectively mean that per tax bracket available less tax would have to be paid.

“This increased spending power may result in increased consumption of goods and services locally, which is a positive for the economy.

“This will not be a new announcement as it has already been announced at the 2023/24 budget speech last year this time.

“We are eagerly waiting for that to come through,” senior country partner at PwC Chantel Husselmann says.

FNB economist Ruusa Nandago says this is a good first step towards making Namibia a more competitive environment for investment.

“The tax relief for individuals would be a welcome development as it would ease the pressure on lower-income households from the accelerated inflation seen over the past two years.

“Secondly, there is an expectation of reducing the corporate tax rate from 32% to 31%,” she says.