URA: Tax disputes affecting revenue collection

It is the mandate of Uganda Revenue Authority to collect taxes.

Yet this doesn’t seem like a walk in the park as the body ends up in running legal battles with some of the tax payers.

According to George Okello, the acting commissioner legal services at URA, as of August 4, 2018, the tax body had registered 354 running cases worth Shs 1.5 trillion of revenue.

Okello noted that the increasing tax disputes continue to antagonise the performance of the tax collecting body since taxes tend to be held up.

Resolving tax disputes is still a big hindrance to the performance of URA.

In the financial year 2018/2019 the body was mandated to collect over 16 trillion but over Shs 1.5 trillion is being held up in prolonged court cases.

“Our interest as URA is to see that gov’t revenue isn’t held up in disputes because it also hinders our performance," said Okello.

Okello noted that currently the tax body is battling with 354 cases of  which 235 cases are civil and 101 cases are criminal.

Most of these cases emanate from tax payers not being satisfied with the computation although some are due to mistakes made by URA custom officers.

"Disputes cost the tax body a lot but our success rate is at 83% and last year URA was recognised as the best law firm in the country," Okello said.

In order to expedite the process and avoid going through judicial proceedings which take years to dispose off cases, URA has started employing mediation and reconciliation terms and this has so far yielded results.

Because of the nature of some of the disputes, reconciliation has proved to be quick, cheaper whereas the tax payer goes contented and able to work with the authority," he said.

Last financial year Shs 40 billion was recovered from reconciliation as a form of managing tax disputes although some failed and ended up in courts of law.

Sometimes this is to the advantage of the tax payer as they get a breather in paying their taxes.