Budaka town council authorities vow to drag tax defaulters to court
Budaka town council authorities have vowed to drag tax defaulters to court for non-compliance to remit taxes.
The leaders say low revenue collection has crippled service delivery in the town council as they have majorly been depending on revenue from markets, parks, property tax among others.
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Grace Mudenya the town clerk said despite issuing several reminders, the defaulters have resorted to hide and seek games to evade low enforcement teams.
According to Mudenya, this has affected services delivery such as payment of staff emoluments, cabbage collection, street lighting, allowances for the councilors, and opening of the access roads among others.
‘’With serial defaulters, we shall have no option than taking them to court, because it's within our mandate. We have a number of pending activities to implement using local revenue we cannot divert the conditional grants government gives us’’ she said.
A vendor who preferred to remain anonymous told the Nile post that people are evading paying taxes due to administrative inefficiencies, political interference, lack of sensitization, and corruption among the leaders.
The source said the so-called ‘’big fish’’ in the town have perpetually evaded paying for taxes with others going for over 10 years but the authorities are silent but only dash to harass the poor vendors.
For the last one month, the town council authorities have been combing the streets and corridors confiscating properties of defiant vendors and those who had erected illegal structures.
With its quest to resuscitate its activities that have been grinding to a halt, the authorities have prematurely relocated the market which has been in the town center to the new place near the prisons.
Mr. Rogers Mukose the town mayor defended the move saying it's aimed at decongesting the crowded streets and realignment of the stalls in the park a move that will reduce the likely spread of covid 19. He urged the local revenue task force team to refrain from highhandedness and extortion of money from the vendors.
