The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has registered a revenue shortfall of Shs 94 billion a few months to the end of revenue collection account for this financial year 2022/2023.
This was revealed by John Musinguzi, URA Commissioner General during a news conference as he presented key highlights of revenue performance for the period starting July to December 2022.
This financial year 2022/23, URA is expected to collect Shs 25 trillion out of the national budget of shs 49 trillion.
Musinguzi said in the last six months, the tax body had projected to collect Shs11.7 trillion (46.78%) but collected 11.6 trillion representing 46.40%.
“Whereas there was a slight shortfall of Shs 94.80 billion, the general performance was 99.19%. This performance also shows a substantial growth in revenue of Shs 1.5 trillion (14.83%) compared to the same period last financial year 2021/22,” he said.
In the same period, Musinguzi stated that domestic tax revenue collections registered a surplus of Shs19.32 billion. This was after the tax body collected Shs7.47 trillion against a target of Shs7.45 trillion.
He stated that the direct domestic taxes registered a surplus of shs 85 billion, non-tax revenue posted a surplus of Shs 171 billion while indirect domestic taxes posted a shortfall of Shs 236 billion.
“Major surpluses were registered in PAYE (225 billion), casino tax (Shs 29.33 billion), rental tax (Shs 17 billion) and tax on bank interest (Shs 8 billion). On the other hand, shortfalls were incurred in withholding (Shs 64 billion), corporate tax (Shs 59 billion), and treasury bills (Shs 39 billion),” he said.
With the recovery of the economy from the global Covid-19 pandemic, Musinguzi said the arts, entertainment and recreation sector, accommodation and food service activities sector and construction sector have continued to register significant growth.
“Important to note is there were no new policy measures introduced by the government to increase revenue yield, but rather the expected revenue growth is to come from administrative measures that will enhance compliance, improve processes, and boost the effectiveness of tax administration,” he said.
During the period under review, he said the measures implemented included taxpayer segmentation, taxpayer register expansion initiatives, filing ratio monitoring, arrears/debt management, litigation, tax compliance investigations, and enforcement operations.
He said revenue mobilisation requires all hands-on deck and every Ugandan pulling in one direction by contributing their fair share of tax.
