The competition to keep clients has made MTN Uganda to join its rival Airtel Uganda in offering Over the Top Tax (OTT) package for its customers, underlying the efforts by service providers to make it easy for their customers to pay the tax.
The packages combine payment for data and OTT tax.
In a statement, MTN indicates that the OTT packages can be paid daily (24 hours), quarterly (4 months) and annually.
For 50MBs, one will need to pay 750 shillings, 125MB goes for Shs1, 500, 400MBs Shs3, 000 and 5,000 shillings for 1GB.
For quarterly payments, one needs to pay Shs18, 000 and Shs72, 000 for one year. Customers will dial *165*75# to access the packages.
The packages are slightly more expensive than those of Airtel Uganda. For example, at Airtel Uganda, a daily 15MB will be purchased at Shs450 and it will include Shs250 for the 15MB plus Shs200 for the daily OTT – both valid for 24hours.
The initiative by the telephone companies comes as Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) struggles to meet its targeted revenue from OTT tax since it took effect on July 1.
In the first quarter of the financial year, URA has only managed to collect Shs20 billion out of the targeted Shs24 billion.
Many Ugandans have since resorted to using VPNs as they continue to dodge the tax they say it is unfair especially to the poor.