In its maiden vetting meeting, the Tax Agents Registration Committee (TARC) formed mid this year has approved 289 tax agents that will guide and represent taxpayers on domestic taxes for a period of one-year, effective January 2018.

The agents will act as official intermediaries between the taxpayers and the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA). At the same time, in regard to customs, licensed clearing agents to interact with URA on taxpayers’ behalf.

The successful agents were selected out of a total of 316 applicants, who expressed interest as individual, companies or partnerships.

Of the 289 applicants, 119 are individuals including their nominees, while 170 are non-individual -companies or partnerships, including their nominees.

During the selection process held at the URA headquarters in Kampala, Committee Chairperson, Doris Akol applauded the applicants’ interest in managing clients’ tax affairs.

“This is a key milestone for us and a stepping stone in professionalizing this field,” she stated amid the vetting meeting,” she said.

According to Akol, failure to effectively communicate with taxpayers made the agents vetting and committee inevitable.
“One of the biggest persistent setbacks to delivery of excellent revenue services was the information gap between the institution and taxpayers,” Akol said, adding that had given chance to some unregulated tax agents misrepresent taxpayers and defraud them of huge sums of money.

“And in spite of continued taxpayer education, fraudsters posing as tax agents continued to cheat the public,” she said.

Other members on the Committee are Derick Nkajja from the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Uganda (ICPAU); Godfrey Akena, from the Uganda Law Society; Annet Nakawunde Mulindwa, the Managing Director of Finance Trust Bank and Feddy Bahikirwe Mwerinde, a tax consultant from the Private Sector.

The Tax Procedures Code Act 2014 (TPCA) provides for tax agents. It describes them as people involved in; in the preparation, certification, and filing tax returns, information returns or other statements or reports required by URA, the preparation of requests for ruling, petitions for reinvestigation, protests, objections, requests for refund or tax certificates, compromise settlements and/or abatement of tax liabilities and other official papers and correspondences with URA.

They can also attend in meetings and hearings on behalf of the taxpayer in all matters relating to a taxpayer rights, privileges or liabilities under the laws or regulations administered by URA.

As the practice of using tax agents becomes entrenched, it is expected that all taxpayers should use the services of a registered agent.

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MTN and Airtel have denied increasing the prices on the face value of the airtime vouchers.

Recently, different shops in Uganda hiked the airtime prices in various parts of the country like Kampala, Masaka, Mbarara, Mukono, Mityana, Soroti, Buikwe, Tororo, Mbale and Gulu among others.

The prices were hiked on the most bought vouchers of Ugx 500 which was being sold at 600 and 1000shs at 1200shs or 1500shs.

The telecommunication companies have come out and said that those who sell airtime at overcharged prices do it illegally and also advised subscribers not to pay more than the amount printed on any of the recharge cards.

Alternatively, customers have been advised to explore other options of purchasing airtime such as MTN Mobile money, Airtel money and Easy Load.

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Officials from the Sudanese Standards and Metrology Organization (SSMO) are in the country to acquaint themselves with Uganda’s coffee processing chain, right from the garden.

The inspection of Uganda’s coffee comes just a year after Uganda was given a two-year period to comply with the standards set by SSMO – where all coffee entering their market has to be issued with a certificate.

The process kicked off with a meeting with their Ugandan counter-parts from the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) at their head offices in Bweyogerere.

“We met with producers of about 44 commodities and businessmen and agreed that all commodities entering our market be issued with certificates as proof they met SSMO’s quality standards,” SSMO Director General, Dr Awad M. A. Sokrab said.

He added: “We are thus here to verify the coffee chain from the garden to processing so as to reduce the quality gap since we both (UNBS & SSMO) aim at protecting the consumer and our national economies.”

The only accepted certificates are those from international surveyor companies registered by SSMO; the national standards body of the country of origin, and a certificate from an international accredited laboratory approved by the UNBS.

Further, Dr. Sokrab revealed that Sudan appointed a company to carry out pre-shipment inspection of the Uganda coffee exports to Sudan.

On his part UNBS Executive Director, Dr. Ben Manyindo said the Sudanese consume 20% of Uganda’s coffee. “You contribute greatly to our economy and we value you so much.”

On average, Uganda exports over 0.8m bags of coffee annually to Sudan, making it the leading importer of the country’s coffee in Africa and second importer in the world for the last 15 years.

The four-day visit that ends Thursday will see the Sudanese delegates meeting coffee processors, farmers and exporters.

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China has agreed to support customs modernization project in Uganda with a grant worth US$30 million.

The grant will support the capacity of Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) to acquire latest technologies in the form of non-intrusive scanners, modernized customs risk management, supervision and communication systems, customs service and enforcement support, border infrastructure improvement among others.

The grant agreement was signed in the Chinese capital, Beijing on between finance minister Matia Kasaija and Dr. Qian Keming, the Chinese Vice Minister of Commerce, and witnessed by Ambassador Dr. Chrispus Kiyonga, and Dicksons Kateshumbwa, the Commissioner Customs (URA) and other senior government officials.

According to Dr. Keming, the grant demonstrates the value China attaches to the relationship with Uganda. On his part, Minister Kasaija extended appreciation to the Chinese government and observed that the grant will support government to mitigate revenue losses as well as facilitate trade and border management.

The grant agreement was signed on the margins of the 2nd session of the Joint Commission on Trade, Economic, Investment and Technical Cooperation. During the bilateral meeting, both sides reviewed the status of economic cooperation in the areas of trade, investment, infrastructure and development cooperation. The meeting agreed on strategies to support Uganda’s competitive products access the market in China, promote the country’s touristic attractions as well as boosting investment and industrial capacity. 

The Joint Commission on Trade, Economic, Investment and Technical Cooperation is a bilateral mechanism that meets regularly to review implementation of agreed decisions and prioritize areas that promote trade and economic cooperation.

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