The Uganda Revenue Authority has called for cooperation by the private sector in closing revenue leakages if the organisation is to hit its revenue targets.
The call comes as experts gear up for the 2nd edition of the UG Economic Forum which is slated to run from August 29th to September 1st 2023. The forum, themed "Growing Businesses in the post-Covid-19 era", will, among other topics, discuss how the role of the tax regime in stimulating business growth.
In the recently read FY 2023/24 budget, government set a Shs 29.7tn budget for URA, up from the Shs 25.5Tn target of the previous year.
According to Ibrahim Bbosa, URA's Ass. Commissioner, Public and Corporate affairs, the tax man will rely heavily on digitization of its processes to ease collections and hit the higher revenue target set for the authority by government.
"As a Tax man we have put mainstreaming digitization agenda to make our tax payers accessible to us," he says, adding that the innovations will make the long queues by taxpayers at URA offices a thing of the past.
In the same vein, URA is also deploying communications technology to grow the tax register by increasing awareness and improving the capacity of staff to detect and plug loopholes in the system.
"We created an AI-assisted WhatsApp number to assist our customers remit taxes and quickly respond to their inquiries. We look forward to growing our tax registrar and improving awareness among taxpayers so we can hit our revenue target of Shs 29.7 trillion."
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According to Bbosa, low tax payer morale is the major challenge standing in the way of increasing revenue, with less than 50 percent of Ugandans remitting returns.
"Of the over the 3.2 million people that are supposed to pay their taxes, 3 million don't have morale to do so. Many do not want to register with us, and so we are not collecting enough taxes," he says.
With businesses being amon + g the leading tax payers, the revenue body is calling for their cooperation in meeting the revenue target.
However, private sector players say more sensitisation is needed to increase compliance, especially with regard to new electronic invoicing methods.
According to Kampala City Traders Association spokesperson, Issa Sekitto, some in the business community are green about the new tax operations, which affects their ability to remit taxes.
"Ever since the Efris was introduced some of the members in the business community don't have an idea on what they are paying and how they are paying the taxes."
Sekitto says KACITA plans to sensitise its members on the taxes they are required to pay, and how they can go about it.
"We are carrying out sectoral meeting around the country to educate our people and teach them on their obligations rights and also get to know what taxes they are supposed to and not pay to the authority."
Sekitto calls for cooperation between the revenue body and the private sector to sensitise traders.
"URA can't hit the revenue target without the private sectors, let the URA coordinate with different business operators and put them in the know on how to remit their funds without inconveniences"
