By Joseph Abiria

Arua

Officials from Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) have continued to appeal to tax payers to promptly remit their tax returns. The officials noted that the government is working out plans to introduce an automated system that is able to detect corruption at the source while collecting taxes.

Uganda revenue authority is mandated to collect taxes on behalf of government, but on several occasions service delivery has remained stagnant.
Moses Obeta, the chairman Arua city business community calls upon URA to educate the masses on tax policies and how to remit taxes. “Let’s take the opportunity to educate the tax payers in this kind of forums, there is a lot of gaps in understanding the policies at the end of the day it makes us to miss guide ourselves and behave otherwise”, he remarked.

Volumes of taxes are lost in lower local governments due to poor mobilization methods of local revenue, Feni twaib the Chief Executive Officer for West Nile Civil Society Network reveals that local revenue mobilization remains a big challenge for local governments. “Over time, we have seen local revenue collections going down in local governments, the reasons are so many, one of them is because of the limited knowledge and non-involvement of citizens in the budgeting and tax processes”, he emphasized.

In her response Agnes Nabwire the assistant commissioner in charge of tax investigations appealed to tax payers to remit their tax returns and fulfill their financial obligations. “we thank you so much for those of you who have been compliant and those who are not yet on the fence to comply, we urge you to cross over so that we don’t  run up and down”, she noted.

Meanwhile Denis Kugonza, the acting commissioner at Uganda revenue authority said that his departments faces a lot of challenges, but added that the tax payers need to fulfill their tax obligations. “I implore you and encourage that you who are not here to tell others to remit their returns of income tax, VAT, individual tax, or a director where you’re a sole proprietor, and we close the year on a good note”, he cautioned the tax payers

COVER PHOTO: Moses Kabanda a Commissioner at URA presenting a paper during post budget Meeting By Joseph Abiria