URA to begin impounding cars with foreign numberplates on July 1
The Uganda Revenue Authority has given Ugandan motorists with cars with foreign numberplates up to July 1, 2019 to convert those plates to Ugandan ones.
In order to do this, these motorists will have to pay taxes for these vehicles to acquire Ugandan numberplates.
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According to the notice issued by Mr Dicksons Kateshumbwa, the URA commissioner for customs, the motorists have until June 30 to re-export the vehicles or face fines.
“All owners of foreign registered vehicles which do not meet the above requirements must re-export their vehicles with immediate effect and any contraventions will lead to the impounding of the said vehicles.”
It’s hard to move on the streets of Kampala and fail to come across a cruising car with a foreign number plates, and this has provoked the tax collecting body to start impounding all cars with foreign number plates that initially registered for temporary importation.
Dicksons Kateshumbwa, the commissioner customs, notes that most people who temporarily register their cars disappear after selling off the cars to Ugandans.
Kateshumbwa explains that a Ugandan with a foreign registered vehicle must have a valid work permit or proof of residence in a partner state.
Foreign registered vehicles are allowed to operate in the country after they have obtained a three-month temporary importation form at Shs74, 000 whose period cannot extended. This rule is however often violated.
Kateshumbwa notes that, "These people pay for the 3 months and disappear without coming back now you find traffic on the road with non-Ugandan number plates."
He adds that many Ugandans returning for holidays from countries such as South Sudan, South Africa, Rwanda and Kenya, bring in vehicles with foreign number plates and leave them here or sell them without paying importation taxes.
Kateshumbwa says that by July 1, owners of foreign private motor vehicles must have valid temporary importation of vehicle’s form.
In the last operation, over 60 cars with foreign number plates were impounded and by press time more cars were still being parked in the URA parking.
