The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Ministry of Finance has proposed a license fee of 200,000 Shillings on all car owners as part of the revenue measures to fund the 2021/2022 budget.
State Minister of Finance David Bahati says that the move is intended to streamline the transport sector by getting rid of illegitimate cars and raising money for the maintenance of roads across the country. According to the breakdown, Car owners will pay 200,000 Shillings while motorcycle owners will pay 50,000 Shillings annually.
Bahati was today defending the new tax bills before the Finance committee chaired by Henry Musasizi. If passed, the proposal will come to effect on July 1, 2021. It is embedded in the Traffic and Road Safety Act (Amendment) Bill, 2021 which seeks to impose a license to permit ownership of a motor vehicle, trailer or engineering plant.
This implies that to use the vehicles on the road, one will need a road license, issued differently from the drivers’ license. Anyone who fails to pay for the road licence could be jailed for two years, pay a fine of 2 million Shillings, or suffer both imprisonment and fine. Bahati told the committee that if this license is introduced, the country will have roadworthy vehicles and at the same time, the government will get funds to maintain the roads.
Nandala Mafabi, the Budadiri West MP questioned why the government backtracked from its previous plans of imposing taxes on fuel yet the car license fees was earlier scrapped because it was hard to implement. He says this could increase the rate of corruption.
Henry Musasizi, Chairperson of Finance asked why The government insists on imposing direct taxes that are hard to implement and also questioned how owners of vehicles parked at home will be charged yet their cars are not on road. The government has projected to raise revenue to a tune of 22.408 trillion Shillings with tax measures alone raising 400.93 billion Shillings for the financial year 2020/21.
Last week, Minister of Finance, Matia Kasaija tabled tax measures seeking to make amendments to a number of bills including, Excise Duty Act, External Trade Act, Fish Act, Income Tax Act, Mining Act, Stamp Duty Act, Tax Appeals Tribunal Act and Tax Procedures Code Act. The others are; Tobacco Control Act, Traffic and Road Safety Act and Value Added Tax Act.
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I don’t need to pay taxes any more when there’s no service delivery. Are Ugandans your source of livelihood? You keep on taxing, taxing and taxing to educate your children, go for treatment abroad, feed your families and build your storeyed houses and businesses at the expense of the helpless Ugandans. Please ministers enjoy yourselves and bring up different bills to tax us. You forgot to table the bill to tax Ugandans who eat. The government would get over 100 trillions to fund your families
This is the exact point. It is okay to tax Ugandans but what is the impact of these taxes?
…..Andrew Mwenda here and his minions will find ways of spinning this to make it Rosy. Ugandans, we’re now paying for the cost of such a big useless govt. They will soon tax oxygen so they get to remain flaunting lines of fuel guzzlers to us on Lookers in Katanga!
Wtf happened to us?
This government! They will tax everything so as to get money for their corrupt leaders ,and to feed their families, they keep on dividing the country to create new positions for their friends unnecessarily!
Posts of ministers who don’t deliver services to the people, RDCs who are grabbing people’s land, more and more mps, so what do you expect!.
They don’t care, they don’t mind, after all those same leaders get everything free of charge and allowances on top of what they embezzle! They are about to tax oxygen. And foolishly some Ugandans were given a bar of soap and voted for this foolish and selfish government back into power.
Like your submission. And by the way we have been indirectly paying the same tax levied on the goods we purchase daily.
One day the so called corrupt government beneficiary will vote their cud
If there was efficient service delivery people wouldn’t be complaining about taxes but the question still remains what have the previous taxes done. Citizens are living so poorly and you are spending their money on your luxurious life.
Show me one country in the world where no taxes are paid, and I will show you a stone that will bleed when crushed. It is not the taxes that have problems. It is our non existent accountability culture and weak audit systems that we need to work on.