The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda Revenue Authority-URA has missed its target for the first quarter of financial year 2021/22 by 499.49 billion shillings.
Out of the 4.959 trillion shillings target government pledged, the tax body managed to collect 4.459 trillion shillings. However, this is a revenue collection growth of 389.7 billion shillings from the 2020/21 collections of the same period.
Government tasked URA to collect 22.363.52 trillion shillings in revenue in the financial year 2021/22, which is over and above last year’s collections.
John Musinguzi, the URA commissioner general said that government’s continued restrictions on some sectors has partly affected the supply chain, hence disrupting the market like restaurants, hotels, events institutions and many more.
A number of sectors declined in revenue collection compared to the last financial year. Construction declined by 15.95% and real estate by 4.67%, whereas the revenue from electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply sector also declined by 17.31%.”
The commissioner general added that the restrictions have also influenced domestic tax performance with numerous deficits for example V.A.T 223.64 billion shillings, local excise duty at 77.27 billion shillings, cooperate tax at 24.74 billion shillings and rental income tax at 19.49 billion shillings.
The international trade tax collection was also characterized by deficits, such as petroleum duty 43.34 billion shillings, import duty 68.27 billion shillings and withholding tax 135.80 billion shillings.
Under the international tax performance, the country also registered a decline in imported fuel volumes by 30.39 million liters in comparison to the same period last financial year.
In a breakdown, petrol declined by 24.49 million liters, diesel by 5.24 million liters and kerosene 0.73 million liters.
More to the above, tax yields from imports also declined by 8.655 billion shillings compared to the same period last financial year.
According to URA, the major yielding items also registered declines for example motor vehicles by 345.36 billion shillings, palm oil by 224.94 billion shillings, wheat/meslin by 148.45 billion shillings, petroleum oils by 113.46 billion shillings and electrical apparatus by 116.07 billion shillings among others.
However, the tax body managed to register 65,666 new tax payers in this same period, which expanded the tax base to 1,849,159 taxpayers.
In the same period, the URA customs enforcement managed to recover 22.38 billion shillings from the 2,161 seizures. The investigations also recovered 24.28 billion shilling from the 38 cases.
Despite the missed target, the commissioner general is optimistic that the authority will collect the remaining 17,404,25 trillion by end of the financial year, starting with the 6,104.64 trillion for the second quarter.
To achieve the target, URA highlighted its strategies including among others; alternative dispute resolution to amicably resolve tax disputes with the tax payers, strengthening implementation of digital tax stamp and electronic fiscal devices which will increase effectiveness and efficiency, ensuring effective and efficient implementation of Domestic Resource Mobilization Strategy.
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