URA to develop curriculum to equip informal enterprises

By Guest Writer

Uganda is estimated to have more than 7 million highly productive people however, many of them are not on the tax register due to their informal setup. In order to improve the tax base and transit from the informal sector into the tax bracket, Uganda Revenue Authority has solicited support of the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) to develop a curriculum for students undertaking Business Technical Vocational Education and Training (BTVET). The tax curriculum is a strategic program to encourage new graduates develop formalized enterprises as opposed to informal ones. Already, the NCDC has worked with URA to implement a similar curriculum at the Ordinary level in secondary schools to enlighten learners on different tax and business regulations.

During the launch of the findings by URA & Twaweza at Hotel Africana, Micheal Masembe, the Ag. Manager Tax Education noted the need to engage students early enough in order to reduce on the informality.

He also noted URA is already making progress in automating its processes as part of the findings. For example; URA has automated the TIN process and established an integrity office all geared towards improved services to citizens.

Isaac Arinaitwe, a Senior Economist from the Ministry of Finance said that there is a need to harmonise all the tax revenue mobilizers in government to avoid un fair taxation.

“We need to take stock of all the tax charges and remove irrelevant ones, if possible merge some or increase the good ones,” he said.

On the other hand, Francis Kabuye, the Head of Policy and Advocacy at the Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises advocated the need to sensitize the business community on how to manage businesses through incubation centers for survival.

Meanwhile, the key findings of the twaweza research included the following;

1. Just under half of citizens have owned a business at some point in the past five years
2. Among businesses still operating, the most common type is agriculture
3. The main reason why citizens’ businesses closed is lack of capital
4. The main challenge business owners say they face is access to capital
5. Business owners are evenly split on the current state of their businesses
6. 1 out of 3 business owners say doing business in Uganda is easy, while half say it is hard
7. The tax that citizens are most familiar with is VAT
8. Citizens’ main motivation to pay taxes is to help improve delivery of public services
9. Citizens show an increasing level of support for statements recognizing the importance of paying tax
10. Fewer citizens now say they would cheat on taxes, but fewer also say they would pay taxes without any enforcement
11. More citizens say tax evasion in Uganda is common than say it is rare
12. 7 out of 10 citizens have heard of the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA)
13. 1 out of 20 citizens has had contact with URA