The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) realized less revenue last month with both domestic and international taxes performing poorly.
According to Ministry of Finance filings for the month, collections in August were below target by 149 billion shillings.
Overall, URA collected 1.4 trillion shillings in August, out of which 1.3 trillion shillings was tax revenues.
All tax heads – corporation taxes, PAYE, Value Added Taxes and import taxes registered a shortfall.
This is an indicator that the economy has not picked up as the financial year 2019/20 has just started.
Government’s spending during the month was also below target which means many businesses that depend on government to make money by supplying it were not able to do so.
International taxes had a shortfall of 70.62 billion shillings, the biggest of all. This is because of the lower imports than had been projected.
Domestic direct taxes registered a 10.2bn, mainly because of lower collections on rental income and corporation taxes during the month.
Non-tax-revenue was also below target. URA collected 88 billion shillings against the 143 billion shillings target for August.
URA is expected to collect 20 trillion shillings in the 2019/20 financial year. Government will run a budget of Shs 40.1tn.
If tax collections continue to perform poorly, it means that the government will be compelled to borrow more domestically to fund budget needs.
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