The URA team has this week pitch camped in the suburbs of Mbale & Kapchorwa to court the small traders on their potential to pay tax. The field visits through the Tujenge bus are ongoing to interact with the traders at a personal level. These visits that also include door to door and have attracted small business persons from; retail shop, road side food venders, boda-boda riders and car wash businesses.
The URA visit to this group of taxpayers in Mbale & Kapchorwa is testament of their value to tax contribution. The traders also told the URA team that there were some unscrupulous people masquerading as URA employees, and collecting tax from them.
“Some people come and identify themselves as URA workers and ask for money,” said one of the traders. The traders revealed that some of their colleagues pose as impostors and threaten to close their shops.
The URA team listened patiently to their grievances and offered solutions where they could. Aside of tax advisory services, other services offered during the engagement were tin acquisition, financial literacy, payment of Advance Income Tax, registration of motorcycle owners to facilitate their transfer process with the Ministry of Works & Transport among others.
These deliberate efforts to reach every taxpayer in the Eastern region have so far yielded revenue worth UGX 100,000,000 million from the generated assessments with taxpayer registrations to 1500 taxpayers. With such performance, URA hopes to bridge the UGX 2 trillion target for the month of November.
Other planned initiatives URA will continue to pursue to support businesses through; sensitisation of EFRIS& DTS, surveillance of porous borders to catch smugglers and conducting needs-based taxpayer education strategy to equip taxpayers with relevant knowledge regarding their tax rights and obligations.
Additional Reporting by Gabriel Kyambadde
