Stakeholders are the ultimate beneficiaries of development that arise when the nation achieves financial independence and their role is examined by their participation to determine what improvements can be made by adopting modern and innovative mechanisms to collect enough revenue and reduce on the donor dependence.
In light of this, URA has found it inevitable to initiate ways of creating enjoyable working relationships with its stakeholders as part of its total transformation drive. The ultimate objective is to position URA as customer centric to allow taxpayers to voluntarily contribute to tax.
The URA corporate plan FY2020/21 – 2024/25 is also premised on the need to promote an engaged citizenry to enhance voluntary compliance by building a taxpaying culture through engaging taxpayers, building productive partnerships, leveraging technology, data and innovative staff.
The task of collecting enough revenue therefore calls for more productive partnerships for Uganda to realise full service delivery and economic independence. It is for this reason that URA has continually engaged different segments of taxpayers
URA has engaged business leaders countrywide to mobilise their support as influencers but also listen to the challenges they go through in the business environment as they ensure compliance.
The Commissioner General, John R. Musinguzi met with Gold dealers, Car dealers association, Suppliers, the Bankers association and the Uganda Manufacturers Association. All these engagements were aimed at developing a working memorandum of understanding geared to improving the country’s revenue base.
The on-going Tujenge bus drives in the different regions is also part of URA ’s tax education initiatives aimed at bringing services closer to taxpayers. Through Tujenge, URA is also able to interest clients in paying tax through simplified tax literature.
All these are initiatives are part of the many routine stakeholder engagements URA carries out to strengthen its relations and information sharing with partners as well as build increased awareness of service offerings.
Beyond engaging stakeholders URA has continued to deliver services to taxpayers to include; tax clinics, special taxpayer visits scheduled to keep abreast with clients’ issues at their business premises. The tax advisory visits aimed at sensitizing taxpayers about new processes and systems and to address specific issues relating to compliance. Senior Management staff are usually at the forefront of the visits and are conducted on scheduled basis. These visits also create a closer touch to taxpayer issues which the bigger engagements may not address.
“Through these engagements, URA keeps abreast with the dynamic business environment and clients are able to share useful feedback about the quality of our services for continuous improvement,” James Abola the Assistant Commissioner Compliance explained during a Mid-Western stakeholder integrity forum.
URA has also hosted a total of eighteen (38) benchmarks local, regional and international. These visits are testament of URA ‘s best practices and model institution in terms of its Tax processes, systems and human capital.
Since one of the main challenges of compliance or tax morale today is lack of tax education, URA has understood the pains that affect taxpayer behaviours and attitudes and has tailored information according to the respective needs of segmenting taxpayers.
Taxpayers are therefore encouraged to partner with URA to augment avenues for continued engagement, feedback gathering and where necessary appropriate additional networks. The information shared will support URA in designing solutions that will build business capacity and the ability for every taxpayer to contribute their fair share of revenue.
Additionally, paying tax is a collaborative effort by every Ugandan and so URA will continue to intensify tax education so that taxpayers are made aware of their obligations and entitlements.
