URA Commissioner General in a checked court posing with traders looking on is KACITA chairman Dr. Musoke Kitandwe in a grey suit.
By George Bukenya
As traders decry Uganda Revenue Authority’s (URA) Electronic Fiscal Receipting and Invoicing System (EFRIS), the tax body’s Commissioner General, Musinguzi assured then that the system is here to stay and they should just learn how to leave with it.
This angered the majority of traders who had turned up in big numbers at the meeting held in UMA hall in Lugogo to hear what the URA officials led by the Mr. John Musinguzi were going to unleash to them about the systems of collection of taxes were some decided to leave in protest.
The traders say that they have totally failed to understand this system and URA’s implementers make them to pay excessive penalties because of failure to meet their tax obligation on time using such a system and this has significantly negatively affected on their business capital.
Kampala Central Mayor also backed the traders cause, saying things in trade is not moving on well. He also said that taxes are too high and they are forcing dealers out of business, enforcement team is also miss handling traders while enforcing compliance.
He called on president Museveni to consider the traders outcry because they contribute very much to the running of the government and that government will not start begging when it has an ideal tax base which is being mishandled.
KACITA spokesperson Isa Ssekito the commissioner general that traders are requesting government to first put to a halt on the EFRIS tax collection system and embark on the sensitization of traders and also equip the officials who enforce it with sufficient skills because they also don’t understand it well.
He said that he is educated well and he has been engaged is three workshops organized by URA but still has very little known regarding such a system of collection.
“I want to report to you that the EFRIS system is fueling corruption tendencies by your officials thus encumbering better tax collections. This very week one of our members called when your officials had confiscated just one box of merchandize asking of EFRIS document even when he showed them a carbon copy and the shop from where he had purchased it the instead asked for ‘Kintu kidogo’ .’’ Ssekito explained.
He also another member had a box of merchandize which hadn’t been invoiced for EFRIS and was given a penalty of UGX 8M ordered to pay within only five days and all his accounts in business name were put on agency notice just after three days they wrote to all his suppliers telling them that they shouldn’t supply to him because URA was demand taxes, they also went ahead to freeze his accounts.
Ssekito also to the commissioner that the tax charged per kilogram on garments also pinches the traders so much because collectors many times don’t discriminate for tops of certain fashions of clothes. He gave a list of items of garments that they want URA to remove from this system and these include; T-shirts, sweaters and top among others.
He requested the commissioner to waive the penalty for some KACITA members who had imported goods and failed to clear them due to the huge tax charged in kilogram something that exorbitantly raised their tax amounts from 150m to 410 and 180m to 450m per container.
John Kabanda the Chairman of New Generation Traders Association asked government to change policy on Value Added Tax such that its threshold start form UGX 600M from UGX 150M and the EFRIS tax system should be for manufacturers and those who have a capital base of 1 billion.
Mr. Musinguzi said that URA and Ministry of Finance will seat and find a way forward on the tax being collected using the system of per kilogram but on the issue of EFRIS system he told them to learn how to cop up with it because it’s a policy that that can’t be charged overnight.
“I can’t committee myself on the EFRIS system that I can order its removal because this is a policy brought by government and it’s also an international policy system.’’ Mr. Musinguzi explained.