The SDA church applauds MRA on tax awareness

The leadership of the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) Church in Malawi has applauded the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA) for intensifying taxpayer education among business people and churches in the country.

The remarks were made on Tuesday, 9^th January 2024, by the President of the Malawi Union Conference of the SDA Church, Pastor Tony Nyirenda, during their ministerial meeting held in Lunzu, Blantyre.

Unlike in past when business people and religious organizations looked at MRA as an enemy, today the Authority has completely transformed itself to become customer centred, he observed.

‘’I, therefore, thank MRA more particularly the Commissioner General for positively responding to our invitation to conduct taxpayer education among senior church elders gathered here,’’ added Nyirenda.

 In this context, the President assured MRA of total support from the church and its membership to ensure that people in the country voluntarily pay taxes for national development.

Speaking at the same function, the President of the South Malawi Conference of the SDA Church, who was the coordinator of the meeting, Pastor Wyson Thomas, said that his church felt it imperative to invite MRA to make presentations on taxation so that the church and its members should be more conversant with taxes that affect them.

In response, Mc Hizzal Kawanga, Manager Taxpayer Education, assured the SDA church and its followers that MRA was ready to provide information to all the people in the country realizing that no business or church can operate in a tax vacuum.

During the meeting, MRA made presentations on Custom Procedure Codes (CPC) and tax waivers the church can utilize to import goods duty free or buy building materials without paying some taxes.

Th meeting attracted over eighty senior SDA church members most of whom were from the Southern region.

BY VICTOR MASANJE