By Maria Nassiwa
Kampala: Very soon, you might be saved the hustle of paying your social media tax through daily mobile money subscriptions.
The ministry of finance is working on an arrangement that will see subscribers only paying either annually or quarterly a year.
Addressing a press conference at Media Centre this afternoon, the junior finance minister, David Bahati said, “We want to facilitate that access so that payment becomes more convenient.”
The minister also used the press conference to explain that the tax is not on the internet.
“Excised duty tax is not internet tax, it is for accessing specific services, if you don’t pay for OTT, you will not access social media platforms but you will access internet and send emails,” he said.
According to the ministry’s estimate, Uganda has ten million OTT tax payers and the expectation is that if each of those paid their bit enough would be realized in the collection basket to pay for other social services for the citizens.
Meanwhile cabinet approved the revision of the tax on mobile money transactions from 1 per cent to 0.5 per cent.
This was after a public disapproval of the tax imposed on all mobile money transactions.
ICT, Information and National Guidance Minister, Frank Tumwebaze said the cashless transactions are meant to facilitate development of technology in the country and therefore the tax on withdrawals is some sort of a punitive measure for those “craving for paper cash.”