We attach a summary of the key tax changes introduced by Finance Act 2013.

The Finance Act 2013 contains the final tax amendments to be made to various tax and other fiscal legislations arising from changes proposed by the Minister for Finance during his Budget Speech and the Finance Bill issued thereto. The Finance Act contains a number of changes to the earlier proposals contained in the Budget Speech and the Finance Bill, after deliberations with various stakeholders and parliamentary debate.

You will note that there are some changes proposed in the Finance Bill 2013, which have been omitted from the Act while there have been other changes which were not previously included in the Bill which have now been included in the Act. We have set out below a summary of some of the proposed changes in the Bill which were omitted in the Ac tand the new changes:

• It seems that the exemption of WHT on aircraft leasing payments made to non-residents has been retained. The deletion of subparagraph (q) in the second schedule of the ITA has not been retained in the Finance Act.
• The amendment to section 96 of the ITA to give the Commissioner 6 years to adjust assessments in respect of transfer pricing has also been omitted in the Act.
• There is also omission of the proposed amendment to section 4(1) to substitute the “two” with “four”. This seems to me to be a mistake because the change in the First Schedule of substituting the “three” with “five” has been retained. The two amendments were supposed to go hand in hand in increasing the time period for application of turnover tax on perpetually loss making corporations.
• The removal of VAT exemption on tourist services has been reversed and these services are still exempt from VAT.
• There was introduction of a raft of changes on excise duty on electronic communication services including the Tzs 1,000 per month sim card tax.

Attachment: Rook_Consultants_Ltd_-_Tax_changes_introduced_by_Finance_Act_2013