Angola's government to raise tax rate on "unused land, buildings"

Angola ’s director general, José Leiria, said that the government had introduced an amendment to the National Assembly ’s “Labor Income Tax Law” to increase the tax exemption threshold from 35,000 euros to 70,000 euros and increase the tax rate for the highest salary step.

Leiria pointed out that according to the current tax law, the highest salary tax is a fixed amount of 25,750 kwanzas for salaries above 230,000 kwanzas, which exceeds 17% of the additional taxable amount.

Angola quoted Leiria as saying: "Our proposal is to adjust these tax bands in order to make (for example) a tax rate of more than 3 million kwanzas higher than that of 230,000 kwanzas (which is not currently the case)"

The package of bills submitted by the government to the National Assembly foresees that, among other measures, it will increase the "urban property tax" (IPU) tax rate on vacant land and buildings in order to broaden the tax base.

The taxation recommendations contained in the bills make landowners have to accept IPU, which is a “targeted” tax on urban and urban buildings.We hope to effectively levy taxes on idle agricultural land to encourage the best use of land resources.

Leiria also mentioned the introduction of VAT, saying that this fact has brought benefits to the formalization of the economy, as more and more companies require suppliers to issue formal invoices.