What exactly is happening at the Malawi Revenue Authority (MRA)? Because from where ordinary Malawians stand, the message is loud and painful: everything is taxable — including survival.
Yesterday in Blantyre, MRA spokesperson Wilma Chalulu announced that the authority will this month roll out a nationwide exercise to identify landlords for rental tax enforcement. In the same breath, she expressed confidence that landlords will not raise house rentals once the tax is implemented.
That statement is not just optimistic. It is economically detached from reality.
Taxing rental income in an economy already suffocating under inflation, high transport costs, rising utility bills, and stagnant wages will not exist in isolation. Landlords do not operate in a vacuum. When government increases their cost burden, that cost is passed down. It is basic economics. The tenant — already struggling — will ultimately pay.
To suggest otherwise is to underestimate how markets function and how deeply fragile Malawian households already are.
At the same event, MRA urged citizens to embrace the Electronic Invoicing System starting 1st May 2026 — a system that has already triggered demonstrations by vendors in Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Mzuzu. Small-scale traders, who operate on thin margins and unstable cash flows, are being told to digitize, comply, and absorb compliance costs in an economy where even internet access is inconsistent.
Instead of cushioning the informal sector, the state appears determined to formalize and tax it aggressively.
As if that were not enough, MRA has also disclosed that betting and lottery winnings will now be taxable. In a country where unemployment is high and opportunities are limited, many young people turn to betting not out of luxury, but desperation. It is not a sustainable livelihood — but for some, it is hope, however slim. Taxing those winnings sends a powerful message: even chance is taxable.
The pattern is clear. Rental income. Small vendors. Digital invoices. Betting winnings. Every available pocket is being searched.
The problem is not taxation itself. Tax is necessary for development. Roads, hospitals, schools — they must be funded. But taxation without sensitivity, sequencing, and economic balance becomes extraction. And extraction in a fragile economy deepens poverty.
Malawians are not protesting because they hate paying tax. They are protesting because they feel cornered. Wages are not rising. Jobs are not multiplying. The cost of living is climbing daily. Yet the state’s response is not to widen opportunity or cut waste — it is to widen the tax net.
There is a difference between broadening the tax base and squeezing the tax base.
If policy continues in this direction, the effect will be predictable: higher rentals, higher consumer prices, suppressed small businesses, and deeper inequality. When you tax at every pressure point in a weak economy, you do not stimulate growth — you suffocate it.
MRA must pause and reassess its approach. Revenue collection should not feel like a raid on the struggling. It should be structured, phased, and aligned with economic recovery — not imposed as if households have endless reserves.
Right now, the perception is simple and dangerous: in Malawi, survival itself is becoming taxable.
And that is not a path to prosperity. It is a path to deeper poverty.
