Not every disposal of a specified asset produces a capital gains tax (CGT) liability. The Capital Gains Tax Act [Chapter 23:01] carves out two quite different kinds of escape, and the single most important skill in this topic is telling them apart. The first is a true exemption under Section 10: the amount is taken entirely outside the CGT charge, permanently, and never taxed. The second is a rollover (deferral) relief under Sections 15, 16, 17 and 21: the gain is not taxed now but is carried over into the transferee's (or replacement asset's) cost base, to be taxed on a later disposal — relief from timing, not from tax. Confusing the two is the classic error of this subject: a rollover that is treated as an exemption produces a hidden, deferred liability that surfaces — often unexpectedly — on the next sale.

Section 10 lists the true exemptions, paragraphs (a) to (r). The headline reliefs for individuals are the principal private residence (PPR) exemption for sellers aged 55 and over (Section 10(l)) and the over-55 exemption on the first US$1,800 of marketable-security proceeds in a year (Section 10(m)) — the age was reduced from 59 to 55 by Act 5 of 2009. Institutional and policy exemptions include: the receipts of the tax-exempt bodies in paragraphs 1–3 of the Third Schedule to the Taxes Act (Section 10(a)); deceased-estate realisations by an executor (Section 10(b)); State/local-authority/statutory-corporation loan stock (Section 10(c)) — the subject of CW (Pvt) Ltd and Ellis NO; life-insurance investment assets (Section 10(d)); IDBZ shares sold by a non-resident institutional shareholder (Section 10(e)); petroleum-operator property transfers (Section 10(f)); licensed-investor and industrial-park-developer assets (Section 10(g), (h)); insurance-withheld shares (Section 10(i)); employee share-ownership-trust (ESOT) sales to the trust (Section 10(k)); indigenisation premium (Section 10(o)) and donations of housing units to local authorities/ESOTs (Section 10(p)); Sovereign Wealth Fund disposals (Section 10(q)); and — the broadest of all — securities listed on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (VFEX), which are FULLY exempt (Section 10(r), Act 8 of 2020). Paragraph (n) exempts securities that have already borne the Section 39(c) withholding, avoiding double taxation.

The rollover reliefs are elective and all work the same way: the transferor and transferee elect (by the return date) that the selling price is deemed to equal the transferor's allowable Section 11(2) deductions at the date of transfer — so no gain arises on the transfer — and a proviso preserves the original base so that, on a later sale outside the relieved relationship, the gain is calculated as if the asset had never moved. They are: Section 15 (transfers between companies under the same control, group reconstructions/mergers, and company↔PBC conversions — detailed in CGT Treatment of Corporate Restructuring); Section 16 (transfers between spouses, including divorce-order transfers of a PPR); Section 17 (transfer of business immovable property by an individual to a company under their control); and the Section 21 PPR rollover (deferral where sale proceeds of an old PPR are reinvested in a new one — detailed in CGT on Property Sales).

The practical link to the rest of the course is direct: an amount exempt under Section 10 is also exempt from capital gains withholding tax by Section 22F(a) — so no CGWT is withheld and a clearance certificate releases the funds (see Role of Intermediaries and Depositaries and Capital Gains Withholding Tax). This lesson builds on Capital Gains Tax in Zimbabwe: Introduction, Purpose and Legal… (the Section 8(1) funnel: gross capital amount less Section 10 exemptions = capital amount, less Section 11 deductions = capital gain) and Specified Assets Under Zimbabwe Capital Gains Tax Law (what is within the charge in the first place), and it feeds CGT on Property Sales and CGT Treatment of Corporate Restructuring for the two reliefs treated in depth elsewhere.

By the time you reach exemptions, you already know the CGT funnel from Capital Gains Tax in Zimbabwe: Introduction, Purpose and Legal…: a disposal of a specified asset generates a gross capital amount (Section 8(1)); from it you subtract Section 10 exemptions to reach the capital amount; from that you subtract Section 11 deductions (cost, improvements, the inflation/2.5% allowance, selling costs) to reach the capital gain, which is taxed at the Section 38 rate. Exemptions therefore operate at a specific point in the funnel — they remove amounts before the gain is computed at all. This placement matters: an exempt amount is not a "nil-rated gain"; it never enters the gain computation.

But the Act offers a second, conceptually different escape that students persistently confuse with exemption: rollover relief. A rollover does not remove the amount from the charge. Instead, it defers the gain by a deeming mechanism — the transfer is treated as happening at a price equal to the transferor's costs, so the gain on that particular transfer is zero, and the unrealised gain is carried into the transferee's base. When the asset is eventually sold to an outsider, the whole accumulated gain (including the part that "rolled over") is taxed. The relief is from timing, allowing assets to be reorganised — between group companies, between spouses, into a controlled company, or from an old home into a new home — without triggering a dry tax charge on a transaction that produced no cash to pay the tax.

The distinction is not academic; it changes the eventual tax dramatically:

• Exemption (Section 10): the gain is gone forever. Sell a VFEX-listed share (Section 10(r)) and neither you nor anyone else ever pays CGT on that gain.
• Rollover (Sections 15–17, 21): the gain is merely postponed. Transfer business property into your company under Section 17 and pay nothing now — but the company inherits your low base, and when the company later sells to a third party, CGT falls on the whole gain since you originally acquired the property.

A practitioner who tells a client "the Section 17 transfer is exempt" has given dangerously wrong advice: the client will discover the deferred liability only when the company sells, often years later, with the gain having grown. Hence the framing of this whole lesson: exemption removes; rollover postpones.

This topic is heavily examined because it sits at the intersection of computation and planning, and it is a frequent ZIMRA audit area — particularly the over-55 reliefs (proof of age and PPR status), the VFEX exemption (whether the security was genuinely VFEX-listed at the time of sale), the group-reconstruction rollover (whether the companies are genuinely under common control), and the deceased-estate exemption (distinguishing the executor's exempt realisation from a later taxable sale by the heir).

Section 10 — exemptions from capital gains tax

Section 10 opens "There shall be exempt from capital gains tax—" and lists paragraphs (a) to (r). Each removes a defined category of receipt from the charge entirely.

• (a) Tax-exempt bodies: the receipts and accruals of bodies in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of the Third Schedule to the Taxes Act — other than those in subparagraphs (a), (c) and (f) of paragraph 2. This mirrors the income-tax exemption for the same bodies (the CGT/income-tax mutual-exclusivity from Capital vs Revenue Receipts): bodies whose income is exempt are likewise CGT-exempt, save the named commercial exceptions.
• (b) Deceased-estate realisations: amounts received or accrued on the realisation or distribution by the executor of a deceased estate of a specified asset forming part of the estate. The executor's disposal is exempt; a later sale by the heir who inherits the asset is not (the heir's base is the deceased-estate value — Section 11(2)(a)(i)).
• (c) Public loan stock: amounts on the sale of any bond or stock in respect of a loan to the State (or a wholly State-owned company), a local authority, or a statutory corporation. This is the exemption litigated in Commissioner of Taxes v CW (Pvt) Ltd (89-ZLR-361) and Ellis NO v CoT (92-SC-001).
• (d) Life-insurance investments: amounts on the sale, by a life-insurance business, of specified assets that are Zimbabwe investments for factors F or G in the Eighth Schedule to the Taxes Act.
• (e) IDBZ shares: amounts on the sale of shares in the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe where the seller is a non-resident institutional shareholder (Act 11/2005).
• (f) Petroleum-operator property: amounts on the sale, by a Minister-approved petroleum operator, of immovable property used for petroleum operations to another petroleum operator who will use it for the same purpose.
• (g) Licensed investors: the receipts and accruals of a licensed investor from the sale of a specified asset forming part of the licensed investment.
• (h) Industrial-park developers: the receipts and accruals of an industrial-park developer from a specified asset that is part of or connected with the industrial park (Finance Act 22/1999).
• (i) Insurance-withheld shares: amounts on the sale of shares withheld by an insurance company under the Twenty-Seventh Schedule, para 6(2) to the Income Tax Act (Act 18/2000).
• (j) — repealed (inserted 2002, repealed by Act 2/2005 w.e.f. 1 September 2005). (Note that some later provisions still cross-refer to a "para (j)".)
• (k) ESOT sale by employee: amounts received by an employee from the sale of their shares/interest in an approved employee share ownership trust where the sale is to the trust (Act 15/2002).
• (l) Over-55 PPR exemption: amounts received by a person on the sale of their principal private residence (as defined in Section 21(1)) where the seller was, on the date of sale, of or over the age of 55 (inserted by Act 29/2004; age reduced from 59 to 55 by Act 5/2009). This is the cornerstone individual relief.
• (m) Over-55 marketable-security exemption: amounts received by a person aged 55 or over on the sale of any marketable security (other than a para (j) security) in respect of the first US$1,800 received in the year of assessment. The amount has a tangled currency history (US$1,800 → redenominated to zw$ by FA(No.2) 7/2019 → amended by Act 13/2019, FA 10/2020, FA 7/2021, Act 13/2023).
• (n) Already-withheld securities: amounts on the sale of a marketable security already subjected to withholding tax under Section 39(c) of the Charging Act — preventing double taxation — with a proviso that it does not apply to a security referred to in Section 38(b)(iii) (Act 5/2009; proviso inserted by Act 8/2022).
• (o) Indigenisation premium: the amount by which the fair market price of shares sold to an indigenisation partner or community share ownership trust/scheme exceeds the actual price — i.e. the discount given to indigenous partners is not taxed as a deemed gain (Act 1/2014, retrospective to 1 January 2013).
• (p) Housing-unit donations: the disposal by way of donation of immovable property consisting of housing units to a local authority, approved ESOT, or community share ownership trust/scheme (Finance Act 2/2017, backdated to 1 January 2017).
• (q) Sovereign Wealth Fund: amounts on the sale of shares/securities to the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Zimbabwe [Chapter 22:20] (FA(No.2) 7/2019).
• (r) VFEX-listed securities: amounts on the sale of any shares or marketable securities listed on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange (as defined in para 4(f) of the Third Schedule to the Taxes Act) — a full exemption (Act 8/2020, w.e.f. 1 August 2020). This is the single most powerful securities exemption and the engine of Zimbabwe's VFEX listing incentive.

Sections 15, 16, 17 — the elective rollover reliefs

These three sections share an identical mechanism: an election that the selling price is deemed equal to the transferor's allowable Section 11(2)(a),(b),(c),(d) deductions at the date of transfer (so no gain on the transfer), with a proviso that on a later sale outside the relieved relationship, the gain is computed as if the asset had at all times remained with the original transferor. The election must be made by the date the transferor submits the CGT return.

• Section 15 — companies under the same control: rollover where a specified asset is transferred between companies under the same control, in a scheme of reconstruction/merger (Section 15(1)(b)); or on a foreign company winding up to transfer its whole Zimbabwe business for shares (Section 15(1)(a)); or on company↔private-business-corporation conversions (Section 15(1)(c)). Subsection (2) extends the relief to a security-for-security exchange for no cash in such a scheme. This is the corporate-restructuring relief covered in depth in CGT Treatment of Corporate Restructuring.
• Section 16 — transfers between spouses: rollover where a specified asset is transferred between spouses, or where a person transfers their PPR to a former spouse under a court order on divorce/maintenance. The proviso preserves the base until a sale to a non-spouse. This recognises that intra-marriage and divorce-order transfers should not trigger a dry CGT charge.
• Section 17 — business property into a controlled company: rollover where an individual transfers immovable property used for their trade to a company they control (majority shares or otherwise), provided the company will continue to use it for trade (on or after 1 April 1991). This facilitates incorporation of a sole trader's business without a CGT cost on the building.

Section 21 — the PPR rollover (deferral)

Section 21 defines the principal private residence and provides a rollover where the proceeds of an old PPR (or residential stand) are reinvested in a new one — the gain on the old residence is deferred to the extent reinvested. This is distinct from the Section 10(l) over-55 outright exemption: Section 21 is a deferral for any age conditional on reinvestment, whereas Section 10(l) is an outright exemption for the over-55s. The PPR provisions are treated in full in CGT on Property Sales; here they are catalogued as a relief, not a Section 10 exemption.

Section 22F(a) — the withholding consequence of exemption

Finally, the collection link: by Section 22F(a) (see Role of Intermediaries and Depositaries), where an amount is exempt under Section 10, capital gains withholding tax need not be withheld or paid. In practice the depositary obtains a clearance certificate (Section 22C(5)) to release the seller's funds in full. Exemption therefore flows straight through to the withholding system; rollover reliefs, by contrast, generally require the election and may still involve a clearance application because they are not Section 10 exemptions.

The exemption/rollover dichotomy, formalised

The cleanest way to hold the distinction is to track the base cost:

• Exemption (Section 10): the gain leaves the system. There is no base to carry because there is no future tax — the asset's history is irrelevant once exempt. If you sell a VFEX share (Section 10(r)), the transaction is closed for CGT.
• Rollover (Sections 15–17, 21): the base is preserved and transferred. The transferee (or replacement asset) takes the transferor's low base, so the deferred gain is embedded and emerges on the next non-relieved disposal. The Act achieves this through the proviso in each section: "the capital gain … shall be calculated as if the asset had at all times remained in the ownership of the first transferor." That single sentence is the engine of deferral.

A useful test for the exam: ask "if this asset is sold again to an outsider tomorrow, who pays CGT on the gain that accrued up to today?" If the answer is "nobody", it is an exemption. If the answer is "the new owner, on the whole accumulated gain", it is a rollover.

Why the rollovers are elective and base-preserving

The rollovers are elective for a reason: relief is not always advantageous. If the transferor has an assessed capital loss or a high base, they might prefer the transfer to be a normal disposal (crystallising the loss or stepping up the transferee's base). The Act therefore lets the parties choose — but the price of electing relief is that the transferee inherits the low base (the deemed price = the transferor's Section 11(2) deductions). The election must be made by the return date, and once made, the proviso locks in the carried-over base until an outsider sale. This is the same machinery in all of Sections 15, 16 and 17 — learn it once, apply it three times.

Reading the Section 10 list: four families of exemption

The seventeen live paragraphs of Section 10 fall into four policy families:

1. Entity-status exemptions — the taxpayer is a body the State chooses not to tax: tax-exempt Third-Schedule bodies (a), licensed investors (g), industrial-park developers (h), the Sovereign Wealth Fund counterparty (q). These follow the entity, not the asset.
2. Instrument exemptions — the asset is favoured: public loan stock (c), IDBZ shares for non-resident institutions (e), VFEX-listed securities (r). VFEX (r) is the dominant modern example and a deliberate capital-markets incentive.
3. Anti-double-tax and structural exemptions — preventing the same gain being taxed twice or taxing a non-gain: deceased-estate executor realisations (b), insurance-withheld shares (i), already-withheld securities (n), the indigenisation premium (o).
4. Social/individual reliefs — protecting individuals and policy goals: the over-55 PPR exemption (l), the over-55 first-US$1,800 securities exemption (m), ESOT sales by employees (k), and housing-unit donations (p).

Grouping the list this way makes it memorable and reveals the policy logic: the State exempts where it does not wish to tax the entity, wishes to incentivise the instrument, must avoid double tax, or chooses to relieve individuals and social objectives.

The two over-55 reliefs — a closer look

The over-55 reliefs are the individual taxpayer's most valuable exemptions and are frequently examined together:

• Section 10(l) exempts the entire gain on the sale of a PPR by a person aged 55+ on the date of sale. There is no monetary cap — the whole PPR gain is exempt. The age was 59 until Act 5/2009 reduced it to 55.
• Section 10(m) exempts the first US$1,800 (subject to the verification flag on the current figure) of marketable-security proceeds in a year for a person aged 55+ — a modest annual shelter for retirees' share sales, not a full exemption.

Both require proof of age (hence the date-of-birth field on the CGT 1, see Administration of CGT by ZIMRA), and Section 10(l) requires the property to meet the PPR definition in Section 21 — owner-occupied as the main residence. ZIMRA audits these by checking the title, occupation, and the seller's ID.

The interaction with withholding and clearance

Because Section 22F(a) disapplies withholding to Section 10-exempt amounts, the practical route for an exempt seller is: the depositary applies for a clearance certificate (Section 22C(5)), ZIMRA confirms the exemption, and the full proceeds are released without withholding. For a rollover, the position is subtler: the transfer is not a Section 10 exemption, so withholding could in principle apply, but because the deemed price equals the base (no gain), a clearance certificate is the practical mechanism to avoid withholding on a nil-gain transfer. The candidate should note that exemption is automatic at law; rollover requires an election — and both typically need a clearance certificate to release funds cleanly.

Individuals — the retiring homeowner and share-seller

Mrs Chibwe, aged 62, sells her long-time family home (her PPR) for USD 150,000, a gain of USD 90,000 over her indexed base. Under Section 10(l) the entire gain is exempt because she is over 55 and the property is her PPR — CGT nil, and by Section 22F(a) no withholding; her conveyancer obtains a clearance certificate and releases the full USD 150,000. Separately, she sells listed shares for USD 5,000 in the same year; under Section 10(m) the first US$1,800 of proceeds is exempt (subject to the current-figure VERIFY), so only the balance enters the CGT computation. Had Mrs Chibwe been 52, she would get neither over-55 relief — but she could still use the Section 21 PPR rollover by reinvesting the proceeds in a new home, deferring (not exempting) the gain. This contrast — outright exemption for the over-55s versus reinvestment deferral for the under-55s — is the heart of individual CGT planning.

Individuals — the VFEX investor

Mr Dube sells shares listed on the Victoria Falls Stock Exchange for USD 200,000, a large gain. Under Section 10(r) the entire amount is fully exempt — no CGT, no withholding (contrast the 1% final withholding on ZSE-listed shares from Capital Gains Withholding Tax). The VFEX exemption is so significant that it materially drives investor and issuer behaviour toward the VFEX, which is precisely the policy intent (a hard-currency capital-markets incentive).

SMEs — incorporating a business without a dry CGT charge

Sibanda Hardware, a sole trader, has operated for years from a shop building (base USD 40,000, current value USD 110,000). Sibanda incorporates, transferring the building to Sibanda Hardware (Pvt) Ltd, which he controls. Without relief, the transfer would be a deemed disposal at market value (Section 8(2)(b)) producing a USD 70,000 gain and CGT — a dry charge with no cash to pay it. Using the Section 17 rollover, the parties elect that the deemed selling price equals Sibanda's Section 11(2) deductions (≈ USD 40,000), so no gain arises on incorporation. But the company inherits the USD 40,000 base: if the company later sells the building to a third party for USD 130,000, CGT falls on the whole USD 90,000 gain (130,000 − 40,000), including the USD 70,000 that rolled over. The relief deferred, it did not eliminate, the tax — and Sibanda must advise the company of its embedded liability.

Large corporates — group reconstruction and the spouse relief in estate planning

A group reorganising its property holdings between companies under the same control uses the Section 15 rollover (detailed in CGT Treatment of Corporate Restructuring): the intra-group transfer is elected to occur at base cost, deferring the gain until the asset leaves the group. The Section 16 spouse relief features in high-net-worth estate and matrimonial planning: a transfer of a specified asset between spouses, or of a PPR to a former spouse under a divorce court order, can be elected at base cost, avoiding a CGT charge on a transaction that is not an arm's-length sale — with the transferee taking the carried-over base. In all corporate and family rollovers, the proviso is the sting in the tail: the deferred gain re-emerges on the eventual outsider sale, so the inheriting party must track the original base across years.

Commissioner of Taxes v CW (Pvt) Ltd, 89-ZLR-361, and Ellis NO v Commissioner of Taxes, 92-SC-001. Both are annotated in the source against the Section 10(c) exemption for loan stock issued to the State, local authorities and statutory corporations. They establish the scope of the public-loan-stock exemption — confirming that gains on such stock fall outside CGT — and are the authorities to cite when classifying a debt instrument for the Section 10(c) exemption. Ellis NO also appears in the CGT dispute jurisprudence (pay-now-argue-later under the imported Taxes Act Section 69, see How to Object and Appeal a CGT Assessment), underlining how exemption questions interact with assessment and recovery.

Sabeta M v Commissioner-General, ZIMRA, 12-HH-079. Although a transfer-certificate case, it is relevant to exemptions because where a disposal is exempt (Section 10) or relieved, the seller still needs ZIMRA's confirmation to release funds and register transfer; Sabeta M confirms ZIMRA must issue the certificate once the position (here, that no CGT is payable) is established. It is the procedural backstop to claiming an exemption in practice.

Sommer Ranching (Pvt) Ltd v Commissioner of Taxes, 99-SC-065. Confirms the mutatis mutandis read-across of the Taxes Act assessment machinery into CGT, relevant where a claimed exemption or rollover election is tested on assessment, objection and appeal.

A note on grounding. Several Section 10 exemptions (notably the VFEX exemption (r), the Sovereign Wealth Fund exemption (q), the indigenisation premium (o), and the housing-donation exemption (p)) are recent statutory creations with no developed case law; they rest on the statutory text and their amending Acts, cited above. Where a monetary figure is uncertain (the Section 10(m) US$1,800 threshold), this lesson flags it for verification rather than asserting an unconfirmed current amount. No exemption or relief is asserted here that is not in the 27 May 2025 CGT Act source.

1. Confusing exemption with rollover. A Section 10 exemption removes the gain forever; a Sections 15–17/21 rollover only defers it, carrying the base to the transferee/replacement asset. Treating a rollover as an exemption hides a real, deferred liability that surfaces on the next sale.

2. Forgetting that the rollover transferee inherits the low base. After a Section 15/16/17 election, the asset carries the original transferor's base, so the whole accumulated gain is taxed on a later outsider sale (the proviso "as if the asset had at all times remained" with the first transferor).

3. Missing the rollover election deadline. Each rollover is elective and must be elected by the CGT return date (Section 15(3), Section 16(3), Section 17(2)). No election, no relief — the transfer is a normal disposal at market value.

4. Assuming the over-55 PPR exemption needs reinvestment. Section 10(l) is an outright exemption for the over-55s — no reinvestment required, no monetary cap. The reinvestment requirement belongs to the Section 21 PPR rollover (for any age). Do not conflate them.

5. Over-claiming the Section 10(m) securities exemption. It exempts only the first US$1,800 (VERIFY current figure) of marketable-security proceeds per year for the over-55s — not the whole gain, and not for younger sellers.

6. Treating an heir's later sale as exempt. Section 10(b) exempts the executor's realisation of estate assets — not a subsequent sale by the heir, who has a base equal to the deceased-estate value (Section 11(2)(a)(i)) and is fully within the charge.

7. Assuming all listed shares are exempt. Only VFEX-listed securities are exempt (Section 10(r)); ZSE-listed shares are taxed via the 1% final withholding (Finance Act Section 39(a)). The exchange of listing is decisive.

8. Overlooking the Section 10(n)/double-tax interaction. A security already subjected to the Section 39(c) withholding is exempt under Section 10(n) to avoid double taxation — but the proviso excludes securities referred to in Section 38(b)(iii); check the proviso before claiming.

9. Ignoring the withholding/clearance step. Even where an amount is exempt (Section 22F(a)), the depositary should obtain a clearance certificate to release funds without withholding; assuming the exemption operates automatically at the conveyancing stage can stall a transaction.

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.

• Two distinct escapes, often confused: a Section 10 exemption removes the gain permanently; a rollover relief (Sections 15, 16, 17, 21) only defers it, carrying the base to the transferee/replacement asset so the whole gain is taxed on the later non-relieved disposal.
• The one-sentence test: if the asset were sold to an outsider tomorrow, does nobody pay CGT on the gain to date (exemption) or does the new owner pay on the whole accumulated gain (rollover)?
• Section 10 exemptions (a)–(r) fall into four families: entity-status (a, g, h, q), instrument (c, e, r = VFEX, full exemption), anti-double-tax/structural (b, i, n, o), and social/individual (k, l, m, p).
• Over-55 reliefs: Section 10(l) exempts the entire PPR gain for sellers aged 55+ (age cut from 59 by Act 5/2009, no cap, no reinvestment); Section 10(m) exempts the **first US$1,800 of marketable-security proceeds a year for the over-55s.
• VFEX vs ZSE: VFEX-listed securities are fully exempt (Section 10(r)); ZSE-listed shares bear the 1% final withholding — the listing decides the tax.
• Deceased estates: the executor's realisation is exempt (Section 10(b)), but a later sale by the heir is fully taxable (base = estate value, Section 11(2)(a)(i)).
• Rollover mechanics (Sections 15–17): elective by the return date; deemed selling price = the transferor's Section 11(2) deductions (no gain now); the proviso preserves the base until an outsider sale — the inheriting party carries the embedded liability.
• PPR has both: an outright over-55 exemption (Section 10(l)) and a reinvestment-based rollover (Section 21) for any age — do not conflate them (full treatment in CGT on Property Sales); group reorganisations use the Section 15 rollover (CGT Treatment of Corporate Restructuring).
• Collection link: a Section 10-exempt amount is also exempt from withholding (Section 22F(a)) — release of funds via a clearance certificate; rollovers are not Section 10 exemptions and turn on the election.
• Policy insight: exemptions target who/what the State chooses not to tax (charities, retirees, VFEX listings, public debt) and prevent double taxation; rollovers keep the tax intact but remove it as a barrier to genuine reorganisation — incorporation, group restructuring, marriage/divorce, and moving home — by deferring the charge until cash is realised from an outsider.

Table 1 — Exemption vs rollover relief

Table 2 — Section 10 exemptions at a glance

Diagram — Is the disposal taxed, exempt, or rolled over?

flowchart TD
 A[Disposal of a specified asset] --> B{Falls within a Section 10 exemption?}
 B -->|Yes| C[EXEMPT - outside CGT permanently; no withholding Section 22F a]
 B -->|No| D{Qualifying relieved transfer? group/spouse/own-company/PPR reinvest}
 D -->|Yes and election made| E[ROLLOVER - deemed price = Section 11 base; no gain now]
 E --> F[Transferee inherits base; gain taxed on later outsider sale]
 D -->|No, or no election| G[Normal disposal]
 G --> H{Acquired before 22 Feb 2019?}
 H -->|Yes| I[CGT = 5% of gross - Section 38 a]
 H -->|No| J[CGT = 20% of gain - Section 38 b]

Statutes & sections

• Capital Gains Tax Act [Chapter 23:01]
• Section 10 — exemptions from CGT, paras (a)–(r): incl. (b) deceased-estate executor realisation; (c) State/local-authority/statutory-corp loan stock; (k) ESOT sale to trust; (l) over-55 PPR; (m) over-55 first US$1,800 of securities; (n) already-withheld securities; (o) indigenisation premium; (p) housing-unit donations; (q) Sovereign Wealth Fund; (r) VFEX-listed securities (full exemption).
• Section 11(2) — deductions (cost, improvements, inflation allowance, selling costs) that define the rollover deemed price.
• Section 15 — rollover: transfers between companies under the same control / reconstructions / company↔PBC conversions (see CGT Treatment of Corporate Restructuring).
• Section 16 — rollover: transfers between spouses, incl. divorce-order PPR transfers.
• Section 17 — rollover: transfer of business immovable property by an individual to a controlled company.
• Section 21 — definition of principal private residence and the PPR reinvestment rollover (see CGT on Property Sales).
• Section 22F(a) — no capital gains withholding tax on amounts exempt under Section 10.
• Finance Act [Chapter 23:04] — Section 38 (CGT rates), Section 39 (CGWT rates; Section 39(c) referenced by Section 10(n)), Section 39A (currency/deductions).
• Income Tax Act (Taxes Act) [Chapter 23:06] — Third Schedule paras 1–3 (Section 10(a) exempt bodies; para 4(f) VFEX definition for Section 10(r)); Eighth Schedule (Section 10(d)); Twenty-Seventh Schedule para 6(2) (Section 10(i)).

Case law

• Commissioner of Taxes v CW (Pvt) Ltd, 89-ZLR-361 — scope of the Section 10(c) public-loan-stock exemption.
• Ellis NO v Commissioner of Taxes, 92-SC-001 — Section 10(c) loan-stock exemption; also pay-now-argue-later in CGT disputes.
• Sabeta M v Commissioner-General, ZIMRA, 12-HH-079 — ZIMRA must issue the certificate once the no-CGT/exempt position is established.
• Sommer Ranching (Pvt) Ltd v Commissioner of Taxes, 99-SC-065 — mutatis mutandis read-across of Taxes Act machinery to CGT exemption/relief assessment.

ZIMRA guidance

• Comprehensive Guide to Form CGT 1 — ZIMRA External Guide — claiming exemptions and rollovers on the CGT 1; date-of-birth field for the over-55 reliefs; clearance-certificate process for exempt disposals.