Shs1 trillion worth of taxes tied up in commercial court

There are a number of court cases, many of which are holding a lot of taxable incomes. FILE PHOTO

By ISMAIL MUSA LADU

Kampala- At least Shs1 trillion that should have been collected by Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) is tied up in unresolved court cases, according to Mr Yorokamu Bamwine, the Principal Judge.
While presenting a paper on domestic resource mobilisation, opportunities and challenges for Uganda
in a training organised by URA, Justice Bamwine said to live up to the expectations of the population, the Judiciary has through its self-generated innovations, reforms and policy interventions promoted domestic resource mobilisation - generating taxes for government.

Very often, however, he said, challenges have outweighed opportunities for optimum contribution to that goal.

Using court fees as a baseline to arrive at this figure, Justice Bamwine said: “The Commercial Division completed over 2,000 cases in 2018 but still has over Shs1 trillion worth of cases held up in unresolved disputes.”

This, he said, is unacceptable for an economy such as Uganda whose tax base is particularly narrow.

At least Shs885b and Shs19b has been recovered through the Anti-Corruption Court and asset recovery orders, respectively.

“For example, at the High Court level we have 54 Judges, including the two attached to the Industrial Court to handle over 63,000 pending cases. This implies that the workload per Judge stands at over 1,200 cases, requiring a disposal of 101 cases per month, five cases per day in a month, a humanly impossible task,” Justice Bamwine said.

Speaking at the same event where members of the justice system and the Tax Appeals Tribunal were trained, Ms Doris Akol, the URA commissioner general, said there was need for serious discussions with different stakeholders to offer feedback that will allow the tax body achieve its mandate.
Ms Akol also expressed discomfort with continued attachment of URA assets and bank accounts, as well as revenue collection accounts.

This, she said, frustrates domestic revenue mobilisation.

However, Justice Bamwine said such challenges were part of the justice system under which URA must operate, adding that a lot of money continues to be tied up in court cases, key among them commercial transactions.

“As a result, would-be sources of tax revenue malfunction or are blocked,” Justice Bamwine noted in his presentation.

|Tied up taxable revenue
Many cases, which have a commercial value attached to them such as land remain unresolved thus holding up taxable revenue.
For instance, according to Justice Bamwine, the Land Division has a case backlog of about 9,000 which means that a lot of taxable revenue is tied up in such cases.

iladu@ug.nationmedia.com