Zimbabwe's Capital Gains Tax is built on a single, decisive jurisdictional hinge: source, not residence. The charging provision, Section 6 of the Capital Gains Tax Act [Chapter 23:01], levies tax on capital gains "received by or accrued to or in favour of any person," and the operative definition of "gross capital amount" in Section 8(1)(a) confines that charge to amounts arising "from a source within Zimbabwe" on the sale of specified assets. Everything in cross-border CGT flows from that one phrase. A non-resident — an individual living in London, a company incorporated in Mauritius, a fund domiciled in the Cayman Islands — is fully within the Zimbabwean CGT net when it disposes of a Zimbabwe-sourced specified asset, and equally a Zimbabwean resident falls outside the CGT net when the gain has a foreign source. Citizenship, residence, and ordinary residence are, for the basic charge, irrelevant.

The class of taxable assets is narrow and defined exhaustively. Under Section 2(1), a "specified asset" is only (a) immovable property, (b) any marketable security (bonds, debentures, shares, stock, unit-trust rights), or (c) a right or title registered (or requiring registration) under the mining, patents, trademarks, designs, copyright, brands, geographical indications, or integrated-circuit statutes. For the cross-border analyst, two source rules dominate: immovable property is sourced where it is physically situated (its situs) — Zimbabwean land is always a Zimbabwean source — and marketable securities and registrable rights are sourced by reference to the company, register, or statutory registration located in Zimbabwe. A non-resident selling a farm in Marondera, a stake in an unlisted Harare company, or a registered mining claim is taxed here; a non-resident selling shares in a foreign company is not (subject to the special mining-title rule below).

Because non-residents often have no permanent presence, no local bank account, and no incentive to file, Zimbabwe secures collection through three structural chokepoints rather than relying on voluntary compliance. First, Part IIIA withholding (Sections 22A–22L) forces the depositary holding the sale proceeds — the conveyancer, estate agent, stockbroker, financial institution, or registering official — to deduct CGT at source before releasing the money, with the agent (Section 22D) and ultimately the payee (Section 22E) as fall-backs. Second, the registration chokepoint in Sections 30A and 32 bars the Deeds Registry and the share-transfer official from registering any transfer unless a ZIMRA certificate confirms the CGT has been paid — a non-resident simply cannot perfect title without settling the tax. Third, Section 31 compels the Registrar of Deeds, banks, building societies, and brokers to report every transfer to ZIMRA. The rates are set by the Finance Act [Chapter 23:04]: under Section 38, 20% of the capital gain for specified assets acquired on or after 22 February 2019, and 5% of the gross capital amount for those acquired before that date; withholding under Section 39 runs at 15% (provisional) on immovable property, 1% (final) on listed securities, and 5% on other (unlisted) marketable securities. Section 39A governs currency, taxing foreign-currency gains in foreign currency.

The single most aggressive cross-border provision is Section 30B, the Special Capital Gains Tax on the transfer of a mining title, inserted by Act 13 of 2023 with effect from 1 January 2024 and substituted by Finance (No. 2) Act 7 of 2024 with effect from 31 December 2024. It taxes the transfer of a Zimbabwean mining title "concluded within or outside Zimbabwe" — reaching the classic offshore indirect transfer, where a foreign holding company sells its shares (and with them, economic control of a Zimbabwean mining asset) entirely beyond Zimbabwe's borders. The rate is 20% of the transaction value, reduced to 5% where the responsible Minister has approved the transfer under the mining law. The Chamber of Mines has challenged the provision as an extraterritorial and retrospective reach (an Editor's Note in the Act records this), and no on-point judgment yet exists — a point to teach with care.

Relief from economic double taxation runs through Section 28, which applies Section 91 of the Income Tax Act [Chapter 23:06] (relief from double taxation), and through Zimbabwe's network of Double Taxation Agreements (DTAs). Most Zimbabwean DTAs follow the OECD/UN Model pattern in their capital-gains article (commonly Article 13): gains on immovable property are taxable in the state where the property is situated; gains on shares deriving their value principally from immovable property are frequently taxable at the situs; and other gains are often reserved to the residence state. Because Zimbabwe taxes on a source basis, treaty conflicts arise mainly where the other state taxes the same gain on a residence basis — and the DTA, read with Section 91, decides who yields. This lesson assembles all of these strands — source, the asset classes, withholding enforcement against non-residents, the Section 30B offshore rule, currency, and treaty relief — into a single working framework, with worked USD computations for individuals, SMEs, and multinationals. It builds directly on the residence-and-source foundations laid in the Income Tax lesson on Residence and Source Rules and on the CGT engine assembled in Special Rules, Corporate Restructuring, Payment and Recovery, and Practical Applications.

Every cross-border tax question reduces, in the end, to one of two organising ideas: does a country tax because of who you are (residence) or because of where the money comes from (source)? Most developed economies tax their residents on worldwide income and gains, and then tax non-residents only on locally sourced amounts. Zimbabwe, by contrast, has historically been a source-based jurisdiction for income tax, and for Capital Gains Tax it is source-based without qualification. This single design choice is the master switch that controls the entire cross-border analysis, and it must be understood from first principles before any computation is attempted.

To see why, return to the statutory text. Section 6 of the Capital Gains Tax Act [Chapter 23:01] — the charging section — says CGT "shall be charged, levied and collected throughout Zimbabwe … in respect of the capital gains … received by or accrued to or in favour of any person during any year of assessment." The phrase "any person" is deliberately wide: it embraces residents and non-residents, individuals and companies, trusts, partnerships, estates, and foreign entities alike. Standing alone, Section 6 would appear to tax the whole world. But it does not, because the definition it depends upon narrows the field dramatically. Section 8(1)(a) defines "gross capital amount" as "the total amount received by or accrued to … a person … from a source within Zimbabwe from the sale … of specified assets." The words "from a source within Zimbabwe" are the true gateway. No Zimbabwean source, no gross capital amount; no gross capital amount, no capital gain; no capital gain, no tax. The charge in Section 6 is therefore switched on by personhood but gated by source.

The practical consequence is symmetrical and often surprising to newcomers. On the one hand, a person who has never set foot in Zimbabwe, who pays no other Zimbabwean tax, and who lives permanently abroad is nonetheless fully liable to Zimbabwean CGT the moment they sell a Zimbabwean-sourced specified asset — a house in Borrowdale, a farm in Mashonaland, shares in a private Bulawayo company. On the other hand, a Zimbabwean citizen ordinarily resident in Harare who sells an apartment in Johannesburg or shares in a London-listed company has no Zimbabwean CGT to pay, because the gain has a foreign source and therefore never enters the gross capital amount. Residence neither creates nor removes the charge. It is the location of the asset and the origin of the gain that decide.

This matters in Zimbabwe for concrete, current reasons. The country attracts substantial foreign direct investment into mining, large-scale agriculture, property development, and listed equities; foreign investors routinely exit those investments by selling specified assets, and ZIMRA has a strong revenue interest in capturing the gain at the point of exit. At the same time, the diaspora — Zimbabweans living and working abroad — own enormous quantities of domestic property and shares, and their disposals are squarely within the charge. And the rise of offshore holding structures (a Zimbabwean operating company owned through a Mauritian, South African, or Cayman holding company) has created a persistent risk that economic ownership of Zimbabwean assets changes hands entirely outside the country, beyond the reach of the ordinary source rule — the gap that Section 30B was enacted to close. Cross-border CGT is therefore not a niche topic; it is where a large share of the real revenue, and a large share of ZIMRA's audit and enforcement attention, is concentrated. It is heavily examinable precisely because it forces the candidate to integrate the charge, the source rule, the asset definition, the withholding machinery, the registration chokepoint, the currency rules, and the treaty network into one coherent answer.

The cross-border CGT framework is assembled from provisions scattered across the Capital Gains Tax Act, the Income Tax Act (applied by cross-reference), and the Finance Act. Each must be identified by number and read for exactly what it does.

B.1 The charge and the source gate — Sections 6 and 8

Section 6 (Charging of capital gains tax) imposes the tax on capital gains "received by or accrued to or in favour of any person." It contains no residence test and no source test of its own; it is the engine, and it runs for everyone.

Section 8(1) (Interpretation of terms relating to capital gains tax) supplies the three defined amounts that turn a sale into a taxable gain, and it is here that source enters:

• Section 8(1)(a) — "gross capital amount" is the total amount received, accrued, or deemed received/accrued "from a source within Zimbabwe from the sale … of specified assets," excluding any amount the taxpayer proves to be "gross income" under Section 8 of the Income Tax Act (the capital/revenue boundary, examined in the Income Tax lesson on Capital vs Revenue Receipts), and including any recovered or recouped deduction. The source requirement is therefore embedded in the very first definition.
• Section 8(1)(b) — "capital amount" is the gross capital amount less amounts exempt under Section 10.
• Section 8(1)(c) — "capital gain" is the capital amount less the deductions allowed under Section 11.

Section 8(2) then supplies a series of deeming rules that convert non-sale events into sales — most importantly Section 8(2)(b), under which a disposal otherwise than by sale (a donation, a distribution, a transfer for no or inadequate price) is deemed a sale at fair market price, a rule confirmed in R (Pvt) Ltd v ZIMRA 19-HH-792. This matters cross-border because gifts and intra-group transfers of Zimbabwean assets by non-residents are caught even though no money changes hands.

B.2 What is taxed — the "specified asset" definition (Section 2(1)) and the source of each class

Section 2(1) defines "specified asset" exhaustively as:

• (a) immovable property — land and buildings;
• (b) any marketable security — defined in the same section as any bond capable of sale on a share market, and any debenture, share or stock or unit-trust right, whether or not market-tradeable; "share" expressly includes a member's interest in a private business corporation; and
• (c) any right or title to property (tangible or intangible) registered or required to be registered under the Mines and Minerals Act [Chapter 21:05], the Patents Act [Chapter 26:03], the Trade Marks Act [Chapter 26:04], the Industrial Designs Act [Chapter 26:02], the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act [Chapter 26:05], the Brands Act [Chapter 19:03], the Geographical Indications Act [Chapter 26:06], or the Integrated Circuit Layout-Designs Act [Chapter 26:07].

The Act does not lay down a separate, self-contained "source of a capital gain" code; instead Section 9 provides that a capital amount is deemed to have accrued in the circumstances set out in Section 10(1) and (2) of the Income Tax Act [Chapter 23:06], applied mutatis mutandis. Source is therefore determined by general source principles read together with the nature of each asset class:

• Immovable property is sourced at its situs — the place where the land physically lies. Zimbabwean land is always a Zimbabwean source, regardless of where the buyer, seller, contract, or payment is located. This is the most settled source rule in the system and admits of no exception.

• Marketable securities are sourced by reference to the company or scheme whose securities they are and the place of the register. Shares in a company incorporated and registered in Zimbabwe, and securities listed on a Zimbabwean exchange (the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange) whose register is kept here, are Zimbabwean-sourced. A gain on shares in a foreign company is foreign-sourced and outside the basic charge.

• Registrable rights under paragraph (c) are sourced where they are registered — a mining claim, patent, or trademark on the Zimbabwean register is a Zimbabwean source.

B.3 Exemptions with a cross-border edge — Section 10

Section 10 lists the receipts exempt from CGT. Several bear directly on non-residents and cross-border holders:

• Section 10(e) exempts gains on the sale of shares in the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe where the seller is an institutional shareholder … not ordinarily resident in Zimbabwe — a rare provision that turns on non-residence.
• Section 10(r) exempts gains on securities listed on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX) (inserted by Act 8 of 2020, w.e.f. 1 August 2020) — a deliberate incentive to draw foreign and diaspora capital onto the USD-denominated VFEX board.
• Section 10(l) and (m) give the over-55 reliefs (principal private residence; first US$1,800 of marketable-security proceeds per year) — available to qualifying non-resident citizens as much as residents, because the test is age, not residence.
• Section 10(b) exempts realisations by the executor of a deceased estate, and Section 10(c) exempts certain State/local-authority/statutory-corporation loan stock (the exemption litigated in Commissioner of Taxes v C W (Pvt) Ltd 89-ZLR-361 and Ellis N.O. v CoT 92-SC-001).

B.4 Collection against non-residents — Part IIIA, Sections 30A, 32 and 31

Because a non-resident may have no presence to assess, the Act collects at source:

• Part IIIA (Sections 22A–22L) imposes capital gains withholding tax. The depositary — under the Section 22A definition, a conveyancer, legal practitioner, estate agent, building society, the Sheriff/Master, a stockbroker or financial institution, a land developer/local authority on a stand cession, or the registering official for mining/IP rights — must withhold the tax from the proceeds before paying the seller (Section 22C). If the depositary fails, an agent receiving the funds must withhold (Section 22D); failing that, the payee must pay (Section 22E). Section 22F disapplies withholding where the gain is exempt under Section 10 (and on the sale, though not redemption, of registered unit-trust securities). Section 22H makes a defaulting depositary personally liable for the tax plus a 15% penalty (the 15% waivable where there was no intent to evade); Section 22I allows refund of over-withholding (claimable within six years); Section 22J credits the withheld amount against the final CGT.
• Section 30A requires that CGT not withheld under Part IIIA be paid before transfer of the specified asset, and Section 32 bars the Registrar of Deeds and the share-transfer official from registering any acquisition unless a ZIMRA certificate confirms the CGT has been paid. This certificate chokepoint is the practical enforcement spine against non-residents: title cannot pass until the tax is settled. The Commissioner must issue the certificate once the tax is paid (Sabeta M v Commissioner General: ZIMRA 12-HH-079) but may withhold it where the price or fair market value is genuinely in dispute (Sibanda v Masanga 24-SC-090).
• Section 31 compels the Registrar of Deeds, banks, building societies, and brokers to report transfers of immovable property and marketable securities to ZIMRA, giving the Commissioner the information needed to pursue a non-resident who slips the withholding net.

B.5 The offshore indirect-transfer rule — Section 30B

Section 30B, headed "Special capital gains tax on entities acquiring mining title or any interest therein," was inserted by Act 13 of 2023 w.e.f. 1 January 2024 and its charging subsection substituted by Finance (No. 2) Act 7 of 2024 w.e.f. 31 December 2024. It is examined in full in section C.5 below; in outline it charges a special CGT on the transfer of a Zimbabwean mining title, expressly reaching a transaction "concluded within or outside Zimbabwe," and looks through beneficial ownership and control so that a change of the controlling stake in an offshore entity that holds a Zimbabwean mining title triggers the charge.

B.6 Double-taxation relief and currency — Sections 28 and 39A; Finance Act Sections 38–39A

• Section 28 applies Section 91 of the Income Tax Act [Chapter 23:06] (relief from double taxation) mutatis mutandis to CGT, importing both the DTA mechanism and unilateral foreign-tax-credit relief.
• Section 29 applies the general anti-avoidance rule (GAAR) in Section 98 of the Income Tax Act, and Section 14 of the CGT Act lets the Commissioner substitute the fair market price on an under- or over-valued sale (Sommer Ranching (Pvt) Ltd v ZIMRA 99-SC-065) — both are anti-avoidance backstops heavily relevant where related cross-border parties might mis-price a disposal.
• Rates (Finance Act [Chapter 23:04]): Section 38 — 20% of the capital gain for assets acquired on/after 22 February 2019, 5% of the gross capital amount for assets acquired before 22 February 2019; Section 39 — withholding at 15% (immovable property, provisional, against a final 20%), 1% (listed securities, final tax), and 5% (other/unlisted marketable securities, provisional). Section 39A governs currency, taxing foreign-currency gains in the same foreign currency (Section 39A(9) splitting cases between Zimbabwe-dollar (a) and foreign-currency (b) transactions).

C.1 First principle — identify the person, then test the source

The disciplined cross-border analysis runs in a fixed order. Step one is not to ask whether the seller is resident. It is to confirm that there is a "person" within Section 6 (there always is — the definition is universal) and then to ask the only question that matters for the charge: does the gain arise from a source within Zimbabwe? Residence is a second-order fact that affects collection (how ZIMRA reaches the taxpayer) and treaty relief (which state must give way), but never the existence of the charge.

To apply the source test you must first classify the asset against the Section 2(1) list. If it is not a specified asset, there is no CGT at all — for example, a non-resident's disposal of a Zimbabwean trademark licence that is not itself a registered right, or of movable trading stock, falls outside CGT (though it may raise income-tax or other questions). If it is a specified asset, apply the class-specific source rule: situs for land, company/register location for securities, place of registration for paragraph (c) rights.

C.2 The source of immovable property — the immovable, unbendable rule

Land cannot move, and the law treats its source as fixed at its physical location. A gain on Zimbabwean immovable property is always Zimbabwean-sourced, whoever the seller, wherever the contract is signed, and in whatever currency or country the price is paid. A German pension fund that owns an office block in Harare, a South African retiree who owns a holiday house in Nyanga, and a Zimbabwean nurse working in Manchester who sells her late father's house in Mutare are all Zimbabwean CGT taxpayers on the gain. There is no version of the facts in which a gain on Zimbabwean land escapes the source test. This is why property is the easiest cross-border case to identify and the hardest to avoid: the withholding depositary (the conveyancer) sits directly in the transfer path, and Section 32 stops the Deeds Registry from passing title until ZIMRA's certificate is produced.

C.3 The source of marketable securities — company, register, and exchange

Securities are intangible, so their source follows the company or scheme they represent and the place where the register is kept. Shares in a Zimbabwean-incorporated company, and securities listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (register maintained in Zimbabwe), are Zimbabwean-sourced; a disposal by a non-resident is taxable here. By contrast, shares in a foreign-incorporated company are foreign-sourced, even if that foreign company's only asset is a Zimbabwean operating subsidiary — and this is precisely the gap that Section 30B closes for the mining sector (see C.5). Outside mining, the ordinary rule still holds: Zimbabwe does not, as a general matter, tax a non-resident on the sale of foreign company shares, even where the underlying value is Zimbabwean.

Two refinements matter. First, VFEX-listed securities are exempt under Section 10(r), so a non-resident or diaspora investor trading on VFEX has no CGT and the depositary withholds nothing (Section 22F). Second, ZSE-listed securities attract the 1% withholding under Finance Act Section 39(a), and that 1% is a final tax (confirmed by the explanatory note to Section 39 and by Section 10(n), which exempts from further CGT a security that has borne the Section 39 withholding) — so for listed shares the cross-border seller's entire Zimbabwean tax burden is the 1% deducted by the broker, with nothing further to file. Unlisted Zimbabwean shares bear 5% provisional withholding and remain subject to a final 20% assessment on the actual gain, with the 5% credited (Section 22J) and any shortfall topped up.

C.4 Residents disposing of foreign assets — the symmetry of source

The source principle cuts both ways, and candidates routinely forget the second edge. A Zimbabwean resident who disposes of a foreign-sourced specified asset — a flat in Cape Town, shares in a Nairobi-registered company — derives a foreign-sourced gain that never enters the gross capital amount under Section 8(1)(a). There is therefore no Zimbabwean CGT on that disposal, and no Zimbabwean double-tax relief is needed, because Zimbabwe never asserted a charge in the first place. (The other country, taxing on a situs or residence basis, may tax it — but that is its affair.) This symmetry is the clean logical consequence of a pure source system, and it explains why Section 28 relief is, in practice, narrow for CGT: double taxation arises only where the same gain is Zimbabwean-sourced (so Zimbabwe charges) and the seller is resident elsewhere in a state that taxes on residence (so that state also charges). It is the inbound non-resident, not the outbound resident, who generates the treaty conflict.

C.5 Section 30B — taxing the offshore indirect transfer of a mining title

Section 30B is the most conceptually demanding provision in the cross-border syllabus because it deliberately overrides the ordinary source rule for one asset class — mining titles — to capture transactions that would otherwise escape entirely. Walk through it clause by clause.

The mischief. A foreign investor holds a Zimbabwean mining claim not directly but through a chain: a Mauritian holding company owns a Zimbabwean subsidiary, and the subsidiary holds the mining title. To exit, the investor sells the shares of the Mauritian holding company to another foreign buyer. Economic ownership of the Zimbabwean mine has changed hands, but the transaction is the sale of foreign shares, concluded offshore, with a foreign source — so under the ordinary rule in C.3 there is no Zimbabwean CGT. This "indirect transfer" structure has drained capital-gains revenue from resource-rich developing countries worldwide. Section 30B is Zimbabwe's statutory answer.

The charge — Section 30B(3). There is charged "a special capital gains tax on the transfer of a mining title, being a tax on the value of any transaction concluded within or outside Zimbabwe whereby any mining title has, at any time since the 31 December 2023, been transferred to an entity." The words "within or outside Zimbabwe" are the operative reach — the source of the transaction is made irrelevant; what matters is that a Zimbabwean mining title moved.

The look-through definitions — Section 30B(1). The Act defeats the holding-company shield by defining "mining title" to include "a share, stake, right or interest in any mining title," and by defining the taxable "entity" to include foreign individuals, foreign companies, locally incorporated subsidiaries of foreign holding companies, foreign trusts/syndicates/joint ventures, and any entity not incorporated under the Companies and Other Business Entities Act [Chapter 24:31]. It then reaches the human or corporate "beneficial owner" — one who "through the ownership of any share or stake … is able to exert a significant or preponderant voice" — and the "controller." Under Section 30B(2), a person exerts such a voice if their decision binds the entity, they can veto its decisions, or they directly or indirectly control 25% or more of the votes. The effect is that a change in the controlling 25%-plus stake of an offshore holding entity is treated as a transfer of the underlying Zimbabwean mining title.

The rate and reduction — Section 30B(5)(a). The special CGT is 20% of the value of the transaction, payable by the transferee entity (or, in default, by the owner immediately before the transfer), in United States dollars (or foreign-currency equivalent at the international cross-rate). But where the relevant mining law requires Ministerial (or other specified) approval of the transfer — whether by transfer of the title document or by transfer of the controlling shares — and proof of that approval is produced, the rate drops to 5%. The provision thus uses the tax rate as a lever to push offshore deals through the domestic approval process: regularise the transfer with the Minister and pay 5%; stay in the shadows and pay 20%.

Timing and the registration chokepoint — Section 30B(5)(b)–(6). For the historic catch-up transaction (subsection (3)(a)), tax was due by 1 April 2024; for ongoing transfers (subsection (3)(b)), within 30 days of conclusion, with the Commissioner-General able to extend up to six months. Payment is made to ZIMRA or deposited with the mining registrar, accompanied by an affidavit disclosing the consideration, the title particulars, the transferee/transferor identities, and the beneficial owner or controller exerting the preponderant voice. Section 30B(6) then bars the mining registrar from registering the acquisition without a ZIMRA certificate that the special CGT has been paid, and deems an unregistered/uncertified transfer void, cancellable on the Commissioner-General's written request. The chokepoint mirrors Sections 30A/32 but is bolted onto the mining register.

The contested status. An Editor's Note in the Act records that the Chamber of Mines is seeking to reverse the section as an extraterritorial and retrospective reach that makes "concluded deals liable." This is a live controversy. There is no on-point judgment confirming the section's constitutional validity or its application to a specific offshore deal.

C.6 Currency in cross-border deals — Section 39A

Cross-border disposals are usually priced in United States dollars, and Section 39A ensures the tax follows the money. Where the gain is received "in whole or in part in a foreign currency," the CGT on that part is paid in the same foreign currency (Section 39A(1)); where the gain is split between local and foreign currency, the two parts are computed and paid separately in their respective currencies (Section 39A(2)). The Finance Act rate provisions (Section 38, Section 39) are themselves expressed in dual form — a Zimbabwe-dollar limb (Section 39A(9)(a)) and a US-dollar limb (Section 39A(9)(b)) — so a USD-denominated non-resident sale is taxed at, for example, US$0.20 per US$1 of capital gain. Critically, the inflation allowance that softens USD gains is the 2½% straight-line allowance under Finance Act Section 39A(9a) (not the CPI-based "A/B × C" formula of CGT Act Section 11(2)(c), which applies only to Zimbabwe-dollar gains) — a point developed in the Practical Applications lesson and reprised in the worked examples below.

D.1 Individuals — the diaspora seller and the foreign retiree

Scenario (diaspora seller of Zimbabwean residential property). Tariro is a Zimbabwean citizen ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom. In 2025 she sells the Harare house she inherited and improved, which she acquired (by inheritance) in 2021 — i.e. after 22 February 2019, so the 20%-on-gain regime applies. The contract price is US$180,000. Her base cost is the inherited value plus improvements of US$110,000, and she incurred US$6,000 of selling costs (agent's commission, conveyancing).

Because she acquired after 22 February 2019, she is entitled to the Section 11 deductions and the 2½%-per-year USD inflation allowance (Finance Act Section 39A(9a)) on the cost and improvements. Assume the house was acquired 4 years before sale, so 4 years of allowance at 2½% on the US$110,000 base.

Gross capital amount (selling price) USD 180,000
Less: cost of the asset (Section 11(2)(a)) USD 110,000
Less: selling costs (Section 11(2)(d)) USD 6,000
Less: inflation allowance (FA Section 39A(9a))
 2.5% × USD 110,000 × 4 years USD 11,000
 -----------
Capital gain USD 53,000
Capital gains tax @ 20% (FA Section 38(b)) USD 10,600

Collection. Tariro never files proactively from abroad; instead the conveyancer (a depositary, Section 22A) withholds 15% of the price under Finance Act Section 39(b) — US$27,000 — and remits it before transfer. That 15% is provisional; her final liability is US$10,600, so she has over-withheld by US$16,400, recoverable under Section 22I (claim within six years, with ZIMRA interest if the refund is its fault and is late). The conveyancer obtains the Section 32 certificate, and only then does the Deeds Registry pass title. Tariro's residence is irrelevant to the charge; it merely means she must claim her refund from abroad.

Over-55 relief. Had Tariro been 55 or older on the date of sale and the house been her principal private residence as defined in Section 21, Section 10(l) would have exempted the entire gain, and Section 22F would have switched off the withholding altogether — the age test applies to qualifying non-resident citizens just as to residents.

D.2 SMEs and partnerships — the unlisted share exit and the cross-border partner

Scenario (foreign buyer acquiring an unlisted Zimbabwean SME). A South African private-equity partnership buys 100% of the unlisted shares of a Bulawayo manufacturing company from its three non-resident founders for US$900,000. The founders acquired the shares in 2016 — before 22 February 2019 — so the 5%-of-gross regime under Finance Act Section 38(a) applies, and no Section 11 deductions are available for a pre-22 February 2019 asset (consistent with the deduction-blocking rule for pre-2019 acquisitions explained in the Practical Applications lesson).

Gross capital amount (sale price of shares) USD 900,000
Capital gains tax @ 5% of gross (FA Section 38(a)) USD 45,000

Collection. The shares are unlisted, so the depositary (the financial institution or broker handling the funds) withholds 5% under Finance Act Section 39(d) — US$45,000 — which here exactly matches the final 5%-of-gross liability, leaving nothing to top up or refund. The share-transfer official cannot register the new shareholding without ZIMRA's Section 32 certificate. Note the elegant coincidence in this pre-2019 case: the 5% withholding and the 5%-of-gross final tax align, so the withholding is effectively final. Had the founders instead acquired after 22 February 2019, the 5% withholding would be provisional against a 20%-on-gain final charge, and a substantial top-up would be due.

Cross-border partner caution. A Zimbabwean partnership is, for tax, transparent — each partner is assessed in their own right (a principle established in the Income Tax lesson on Persons Liable). Where one partner is non-resident, the disposal of a partnership-held Zimbabwean specified asset still produces a Zimbabwean-sourced gain for that partner's share, fully within the charge; residence does not shelter the non-resident partner's slice.

D.3 Large corporates and multinationals — the offshore mining exit under Section 30B

Scenario (offshore indirect transfer of a mining title). AuroVest Ltd, incorporated in Mauritius, owns 100% of Zim Gold (Private) Limited, which holds a Zimbabwean special grant (a mining title). AuroVest sells 70% of its own shares to Helios Resources Inc. of Canada for US$40,000,000, in a share-purchase agreement signed and closed in Mauritius. Under the ordinary source rule this is a sale of foreign shares with a foreign source — no Zimbabwean CGT. Section 30B reverses that result.

The sale transfers a controlling stake (70% > 25%) in an entity that holds, through its subsidiary, a Zimbabwean mining title; "mining title" includes a share, stake, right or interest in the title; the transaction is caught "within or outside Zimbabwe." The transferee, Helios, is primarily liable.

Value of the transaction (Section 30B(3)) USD 40,000,000
Special CGT @ 20% (Section 30B(5)(a)) USD 8,000,000
 — reduced to 5% if Ministerial approval of the
 transfer is obtained and proven (Section 30B(5)(a)(i)):
Special CGT @ 5% USD 2,000,000

Mechanics. Helios must pay within 30 days of closing, in USD, accompanied by an affidavit disclosing the consideration, the title, the parties, and the beneficial owner/controller. The Zimbabwean mining registrar will not register the change without ZIMRA's Section 30B(6) certificate, and an unregistered transfer is deemed void. The US$6,000,000 difference between the 20% and 5% outcomes is a direct financial incentive for Helios and AuroVest to route the deal through the Ministerial approval process rather than treat it as a purely private offshore transaction — which is exactly the behavioural effect the section is designed to produce. A multinational must also weigh whether a DTA (Mauritius–Zimbabwe; Canada–Zimbabwe) reallocates the taxing right — but a special tax on the transfer of a mining title situated in Zimbabwe is, in substance, a tax on the alienation of an immovable-property-linked interest, which most treaty capital-gains articles assign to the situs state (see E and the DTA discussion below).

D.4 The double-tax overlay — Section 28 and the DTA network

Where the same gain is Zimbabwean-sourced and the seller is resident in a treaty partner that also taxes the gain, Section 28 (applying Income Tax Act Section 91) and the relevant DTA decide who yields. The typical OECD/UN-model capital-gains article (commonly Article 13) allocates as follows: gains on immovable property are taxable in the situs state (Zimbabwe wins on Zimbabwean land); gains on shares deriving their value principally from immovable property are frequently also taxable at the situs; and other gains (e.g. on shares of an operating company not land-rich) are often reserved to the residence state. Relief is then given either by the residence state (exemption or credit for the Zimbabwean tax) or, where Zimbabwe is the residence state of an outbound seller, by Section 91 unilateral credit — though, as explained in C.4, an outbound Zimbabwean resident rarely needs relief because the foreign gain is not Zimbabwean-sourced to begin with.

Zimbabwean CGT case law is thin and is mostly printed as annotations inside the Capital Gains Tax Act itself. The following authorities, all traceable to the source Act, shape the cross-border analysis; foreign authority is flagged as persuasive only.

Old Mutual Zimbabwe Ltd v Commissioner-General of ZIMRA & ZIMRA 16-HH-143. Shares sold by employees (via an Indigenisation Employees Share Trust) to meet PAYE obligations were held to produce proceeds liable to CGT under Section 8(1)(a). Principle: the motive for, or commercial purpose behind, a disposal of a Zimbabwean specified asset is irrelevant to the CGT charge; if there is a sale of a specified asset sourced in Zimbabwe, the gain is within the net. For cross-border purposes this confirms that a non-resident cannot escape by characterising the sale as something other than a profit-seeking disposal — the source and the asset class, not the seller's purpose, govern.

R (Pvt) Ltd v ZIMRA 19-HH-792. A disposal otherwise than by sale was held to be a deemed sale at fair market price under Section 8(2)(b). Principle: gifts, distributions, and no-price transfers of Zimbabwean specified assets are caught at fair market value. Cross-border donors who transfer Zimbabwean property to a foreign relative or entity for no consideration are taxed as if they had sold at market — there is no "no-money, no-tax" escape.

Sommer Ranching (Pvt) Ltd v ZIMRA 99-SC-065. The Commissioner may invoke Section 14 to substitute the fair market price where a specified asset is sold at an under- or over-value. Principle: mis-pricing a disposal — a perennial temptation between related cross-border parties seeking to suppress the Zimbabwean gain — is defeated by the Commissioner's power to re-price to market. This is the front-line anti-avoidance tool in cross-border transfer mis-pricing, reinforced by the Section 29 GAAR.

Sabeta M v Commissioner General: ZIMRA 12-HH-079. Once the CGT is paid, ZIMRA is not permitted to refuse to assess and issue the clearance certificate. Principle: the Section 30A/32 certificate is a duty, not a discretion, once tax is settled — protecting the non-resident seller who has paid from being held hostage at the registration chokepoint.

Sibanda v Masanga 24-SC-090. Conversely, clearance may be withheld while the price or fair market value is genuinely in dispute. Principle: the two cases together define the edges of the certificate power — settled tax → ZIMRA must issue; contested value → ZIMRA may refuse — a balance that matters acutely where a cross-border price is suspected of manipulation.

Law Society of Zimbabwe & Mollat v ZIMRA 99-SC-092. The Part IIIA withholding-and-clearance machinery was upheld as constitutional. Principle: the very mechanism by which Zimbabwe collects from non-residents (withholding at source plus the certificate gate) is constitutionally sound, anchoring confidence in the collection model that cross-border enforcement depends on.

Commissioner of Taxes v C W (Pvt) Ltd 89-ZLR-361 and Ellis N.O. v CoT 92-SC-001. These delineate the boundary of the Section 10(c) exemption for State/local-authority/statutory-corporation loan stock. Principle: the scope of the securities exemptions is read strictly — relevant where a cross-border holder of Zimbabwean public-sector paper claims exemption.

On source doctrine itself, Zimbabwe inherits the Southern African "originating cause" approach to locating the source of a receipt — the classic statement being the South African appellate decision in Commissioner for Inland Revenue v Lever Brothers & Unilever Ltd (1946) (persuasive, non-binding in Zimbabwe) — under which one identifies the originating cause of the gain and where that cause is located. For immovable property the originating cause is the land (situs); for securities it is the company and its register. No Zimbabwean CGT case squarely re-states this for capital gains, so it is applied as general principle rather than on a binding domestic authority.

Pitfall 1 — Treating residence as the test. The single most common error is to ask "is the seller resident?" and conclude that a non-resident is outside the charge. Wrong. The test is source, and a non-resident selling a Zimbabwean specified asset is fully taxable. Conversely, advisers sometimes assume a Zimbabwean resident is taxable on a foreign disposal — also wrong, because the foreign gain is not Zimbabwean-sourced. Always classify the asset and locate the source first.

Pitfall 2 — Forgetting that listed-share withholding is final. Treating the 1% Finance Act Section 39(a) withholding on ZSE-listed shares as merely provisional, and then attempting a further 20%-on-gain assessment, is wrong: Section 39 and Section 10(n) make the 1% a final tax. Equally, forgetting that VFEX-listed securities are wholly exempt under Section 10(r) leads to over-withholding and needless refund claims.

Pitfall 3 — Missing Section 30B on an offshore mining deal. Advising that an offshore sale of foreign holding-company shares carries no Zimbabwean tax — the textbook answer under the ordinary source rule — is dangerously wrong when a mining title sits underneath. Section 30B looks through to the controlling 25%-plus stake and taxes the transaction "within or outside Zimbabwe." Failing to spot it exposes the transferee to 20% (rather than the available 5%) and to the deal being deemed void for want of a certificate.

Pitfall 4 — Mis-applying the inflation allowance in USD deals. Using the CPI "A/B × C" formula (CGT Act Section 11(2)(c)) on a USD gain is wrong; USD gains use the 2½%-per-year straight-line allowance under Finance Act Section 39A(9a). The CPI formula is for Zimbabwe-dollar gains only. Cross-border deals are almost always USD, so the 2½% rule is the relevant one.

Pitfall 5 — Claiming Section 11 deductions on a pre-22 February 2019 asset. For an asset acquired before 22 February 2019, the charge is 5% of the gross capital amount with no Section 11 deductions — attempting to deduct cost or improvements understates the base and produces an incorrect (too low) tax. The deduction route belongs only to post-22 February 2019 assets taxed at 20% on gain.

Pitfall 6 — Ignoring transfer mis-pricing risk between related cross-border parties. Selling a Zimbabwean asset to a connected foreign party at an artificially low price invites the Commissioner to substitute fair market price under Section 14 (Sommer Ranching) and to apply the Section 29 GAAR. The clearance certificate may also be withheld while value is disputed (Sibanda v Masanga). Document the arm's-length basis of any cross-border price.

Pitfall 7 — Assuming a DTA automatically removes the Zimbabwean charge. A treaty reallocates taxing rights; it does not repeal Section 6. For immovable property (and frequently for land-rich company shares), the treaty typically confirms Zimbabwe's situs taxing right rather than removing it. Read the specific DTA's capital-gains article before advising that relief applies, and remember that relief usually operates as a credit in the residence state, not an exemption in Zimbabwe.

Pitfall 8 — Overlooking the withholding/refund timing for non-residents. A non-resident who over-pays through 15% provisional withholding on property must actively claim the refund under Section 22I (within six years). Treating the 15% as final, and walking away, leaves money with ZIMRA. Conversely, a non-resident selling post-2019 unlisted shares who treats the 5% withholding as final under-pays, because a 20%-on-gain top-up is due.

Work through the questions one at a time. Choose an answer and it is graded immediately, with an explanation and the provision it comes from. Your progress is saved, so you can stop and resume.

• Source, not residence, is the charge gateway. Section 6 taxes "any person"; Section 8(1)(a) confines the charge to gains "from a source within Zimbabwe" on specified assets. Non-residents are fully taxable on Zimbabwean-sourced disposals; residents are untaxed on foreign-sourced ones.
• Specified asset is exhaustive (Section 2(1)): immovable property, marketable securities, and registrable mining/IP rights. Source follows the class — situs for land, company/register for securities, place of registration for rights.
• Land is always Zimbabwean-sourced. A gain on Zimbabwean immovable property is within the charge whoever sells it and wherever the deal is done.
• Listed-share withholding is final (1%, Section 39(a)); VFEX is exempt (Section 10(r)); unlisted shares bear 5% provisional (Section 39(d)) against 20% on gain; property bears 15% provisional (Section 39(b)) against 20% on gain.
• Section 30B is the offshore indirect-transfer rule. It taxes the transfer of a Zimbabwean mining title "within or outside Zimbabwe," looking through to the controlling 25%-plus stake, at 20% (or 5% with Ministerial approval), since 31 December 2023 — and it is contested (Chamber of Mines), with no on-point case yet.
• Collection against non-residents rests on three chokepoints: Part IIIA withholding (depositary → agent → payee), the Section 30A/32 certificate (no registration without proof of payment), and Section 31 reporting (Deeds Registry, banks, building societies, brokers).
• Currency follows the deal (Section 39A): USD gains are taxed in USD, using the 2½%-per-year USD inflation allowance (FA Section 39A(9a)), not the CPI "A/B × C" formula (which is Zimbabwe-dollar only).
• Double-tax relief (Section 28 → ITA Section 91) is narrow for CGT because Zimbabwe taxes on source: conflict arises mainly for the inbound non-resident whose residence state also taxes the same gain; treaties (typically Article 13) usually preserve Zimbabwe's situs right over land and land-rich/mining interests, relieving via a credit abroad.
• Anti-avoidance backstops: Section 14 fair-market-price substitution (Sommer Ranching), Section 8(2)(b) deemed sale on non-sale disposals (R (Pvt) Ltd), and the Section 29 GAAR guard against cross-border mis-pricing; the certificate is a duty once tax is paid (Sabeta) but may be withheld while value is disputed (Sibanda v Masanga).

Table 1 — Cross-border CGT treatment by asset and seller

Table 2 — Residence-based vs source-based: why Zimbabwe's choice matters

Diagram — Cross-border CGT determination

flowchart TD
 A[Disposal of an asset] --> B{Is it a specified asset?
Section 2 1: land, security, registrable right}
 B -->|No| Z[Outside CGT entirely]
 B -->|Yes| C{Is it a mining title
or interest in one?}
 C -->|Yes| D{Transfer of controlling
stake, here or offshore?}
 D -->|Yes| E[Section 30B special CGT
20% of value; 5% if Minister approves]
 D -->|No| F{Source within Zimbabwe?}
 C -->|No| F
 F -->|No| Z2[No Zimbabwean CGT
foreign source]
 F -->|Yes| G{Exempt under Section 10?
e.g. VFEX r, over-55 PPR l}
 G -->|Yes| H[Exempt; no withholding Section 22F]
 G -->|No| I{Asset type for rate and withholding}
 I -->|Listed security| J[1% final Section 39 a]
 I -->|Unlisted security| K[5% provisional Section 39 d
then 20% on gain]
 I -->|Immovable property| L[15% provisional Section 39 b
then 20% on gain]
 J --> M[Section 32 certificate
before registration]
 K --> M
 L --> M
 E --> N[Section 30B 6 certificate
before mining-register transfer]

Statutes & sections

• Capital Gains Tax Act [Chapter 23:01] —
• Section 2(1) — definitions of "specified asset" (immovable property; marketable security; registrable mining/IP rights), "marketable security," "share," "Taxes Act."
• Section 6 — charging Section (CGT on capital gains of "any person").
• Section 8(1)(a) — "gross capital amount" defined by reference to a source within Zimbabwe; (b) "capital amount"; (c) "capital gain"; Section 8(2)(b) — deemed sale at fair market price on a non-sale disposal.
• Section 9 — capital amount deemed to accrue per Income Tax Act Section 10(1)–(2) (source/accrual cross-reference).
• Section 10 — exemptions, incl. (e) IDBZ shares sold by a non-ordinarily-resident institutional shareholder; (l)/(m) over-55 PPR and securities reliefs; (n) security that bore Section 39 withholding; (r) VFEX-listed securities.
• Section 11 — deductions (cost (a), improvements (b), selling costs (d)); Section 14 — fair-market-price substitution; Section 28 — relief from double taxation (applies ITA Section 91); Section 29 — GAAR (applies ITA Section 98).
• Part IIIA (Sections 22A–22L) — capital gains withholding: depositary (22C), agent (22D), payee (22E), exemptions (22F), penalty +15% (22H), refund within 6 years (22I), credit (22J).
• Section 30A & Section 32 — no registration of transfer without a ZIMRA paid-up certificate; Section 31 — reporting by Registrar of Deeds, banks, building societies, brokers.
• Section 30B — special CGT on transfer of a mining title, "within or outside Zimbabwe"; look-through to beneficial owner/controller (25%+ voice); 20% (5% with Ministerial approval); inserted Act 13/2023 w.e.f. 1 Jan 2024; charging subsection substituted FA(No.2) 7/2024 w.e.f. 31 Dec 2024.
• Income Tax Act [Chapter 23:06] — Section 10 (deemed source/accrual, applied via CGT Section 9); Section 91 (relief from double taxation, applied via CGT Section 28); Section 98 (GAAR, applied via CGT Section 29).
• Finance Act [Chapter 23:04] — Section 38 (rates: 20% of gain post-22/2/2019; 5% of gross pre-22/2/2019); Section 39 (withholding: 15% immovable provisional; 1% listed final; 5% other/unlisted); Section 39A (payment in foreign currency; Section 39A(9)(a)/(b) currency split; Section 39A(9a) 2½% USD inflation allowance).

Case law (reconstructed from annotations in the source Act; against official reports)

• Old Mutual Zimbabwe Ltd v Commissioner-General of ZIMRA & ZIMRA 16-HH-143 — motive irrelevant; sale of a Zimbabwean specified asset is within CGT (Section 8(1)(a)).
• R (Pvt) Ltd v ZIMRA 19-HH-792 — non-sale disposal deemed a sale at fair market price (Section 8(2)(b)).
• Sommer Ranching (Pvt) Ltd v ZIMRA 99-SC-065 — Commissioner may substitute fair market price on a mis-priced disposal (Section 14).
• Sabeta M v Commissioner General: ZIMRA 12-HH-079 — clearance certificate must issue once tax is paid (Section 7 / Section 30A–32).
• Sibanda v Masanga 24-SC-090 — clearance may be withheld while price/value is genuinely disputed (Section 14).
• Law Society of Zimbabwe & Mollat v ZIMRA 99-SC-092 — Part IIIA withholding/clearance machinery constitutional.
• Commissioner of Taxes v C W (Pvt) Ltd 89-ZLR-361; Ellis N.O. v CoT 92-SC-001 — scope of the Section 10(c) loan-stock exemption.
• Commissioner for Inland Revenue v Lever Brothers & Unilever Ltd (1946) (South Africa) — persuasive, non-binding — "originating cause" test for the source of a receipt, applied as general source doctrine.

Cross-references (TAXTAMI continuity)

• Income Tax — Residence and Source Rules (Tax Residence and Source of Income) — source-based system, deemed-source rules, DTAs, permanent establishment.
• Income Tax — Capital vs Revenue Receipts (Capital vs Revenue Receipts) — the capital/revenue boundary that Section 8(1)(a) preserves.
• CGT — Special Rules, Corporate Restructuring, Payment and Recovery of Tax, Practical Applications, Case Law — the rollover, withholding-timing, computation, and case-law engine on which this lesson builds.