URA posts biggest surplus

 

URA Commissioner General Doris Akol addresses the Press in Nakawa, Kampala yesterday. Left is Parliament Finance Committee vice chairman Anthony Okello and URA board member Nicholas Okwir. PHOTO BY ISMAIL MUSA LADU  

By ISMAIL MUSA LADU

In Summary

Compliance. Companies in banking and energy sectors came clean on taxes

Kampala.

Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has closed the previous (2014/15) financial year on a high after registering a surplus of Shs139 billion, the biggest excess ever recorded in the history of the tax body.

The surplus is an equivalent of about six times the budget of Uganda National Bureau of Standards, an institution charged with fighting substandard and counterfeit goods.
It also translates into nearly four times the budget allocated to Mulago National Referral Hospital.

The amount can also bankroll the budget of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives for three financial years.
Importantly, the surplus raises URA’s optimism that the current revenue collection targets of Shs11 trillion is not beyond reach. “In the financial year 2014/15 (running from July 2014 to June 2015), the tax body was expected to collect Shs9.5 trillion, representing a growth of 19 per cent from the Shs8 trillion collected in the financial year 2013/14.

However, according to the report, the tax authority posted Shs9.7 trillion implying a surplus of Shs139 billion and revenue growth of 20 per cent.

“This was expected to contribute 78 per cent to the domestic revenue budget and 63 per cent to the total budget that includes external financing,” the URA performance report indicated

Contributing factors
Companies, especially in the banking, telecommunications and energy sub-sectors that had not previously declared and paid taxes all came clean, partly explaining the excess.

According to the performance report, the impressive collection is attributed to URA’s efforts in simplifying the customs processes, which has made operations quicker and efficient.

Stakeholders and taxpayers engagements through tax clinics, tax education drives and reaching out to taxpayers in their premises has also been quoted among the factors explaining the impressive performance.

Also, the Taxpayer Register Expansion Programme initiative, has brought on board more taxpayers from the informal sector into tax register.

This, in addition to enforcement interventions, resulted in recovery of arrears and improve revenue collection from government agencies, all cited as responsible for such performance.

However, the report showed the tax body would have performed much better if government infrastructure projects had not been exempted from paying taxes.

For example, for the period before July 2014, dams, power extension and roads were exempted.
The non-renewal of licences in the oil and gas sector as well as the slowdown of remittances from non-governmental organisations, affected by a recess in Europe, also impacted negatively on the tax collection.

past records

Shs139 billion

Kampala.

Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has closed the previous (2014/15) financial year on a high after registering a surplus of Shs139 billion, the biggest excess ever recorded in the history of the tax body.

The surplus is an equivalent of about six times the budget of Uganda National Bureau of Standards, an institution charged with fighting substandard and counterfeit goods.
It also translates into nearly four times the budget allocated to Mulago National Referral Hospital.

The amount can also bankroll the budget of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives for three financial years.
Importantly, the surplus raises URA’s optimism that the current revenue collection targets of Shs11 trillion is not beyond reach. “In the financial year 2014/15 (running from July 2014 to June 2015), the tax body was expected to collect Shs9.5 trillion, representing a growth of 19 per cent from the Shs8 trillion collected in the financial year 2013/14.

However, according to the report, the tax authority posted Shs9.7 trillion implying a surplus of Shs139 billion and revenue growth of 20 per cent.

“This was expected to contribute 78 per cent to the domestic revenue budget and 63 per cent to the total budget that includes external financing,” the URA performance report indicated

Contributing factors
Companies, especially in the banking, telecommunications and energy sub-sectors that had not previously declared and paid taxes all came clean, partly explaining the excess.

According to the performance report, the impressive collection is attributed to URA’s efforts in simplifying the customs processes, which has made operations quicker and efficient.

Stakeholders and taxpayers engagements through tax clinics, tax education drives and reaching out to taxpayers in their premises has also been quoted among the factors explaining the impressive performance.

Also, the Taxpayer Register Expansion Programme initiative, has brought on board more taxpayers from the informal sector into tax register.

This, in addition to enforcement interventions, resulted in recovery of arrears and improve revenue collection from government agencies, all cited as responsible for such performance.

However, the report showed the tax body would have performed much better if government infrastructure projects had not been exempted from paying taxes.

For example, for the period before July 2014, dams, power extension and roads were exempted.
The non-renewal of licences in the oil and gas sector as well as the slowdown of remittances from non-governmental organisations, affected by a recess in Europe, also impacted negatively on the tax collection.

past records

Shs139 billion
The amount of surplus recorded by URA for the financial year 2014/201The amount of surplus recorded by URA for the financial year 2014/2015