Ibraham Bbossa, Assistant Commissioner, Public and Corporate URA, said at a media engagement held at the URA headquarters in Kampala that 63 URA staff members have been terminated on aspects of integrity in the last three years.
“Lifestyle audit policy is new in the institution; once someone points a finger at you, whether a tax payer or you are being investigated, we will look at what you earn, what your family earns, and what you own. We really need to check up because sometimes the devil is in the details. This is something unprecedented, and it has been put in place to change people’s behavior in the institution, especially on issues of corruption,” said Bbossa.
He further stated that tax collection is hinged on trust, and every time the public doesn’t trust the collectors, the numbers just drop like the stock exchange; some people will easily not pay their taxes, because of some political statement about URA or its personalities.
According to Moses Owino, Manager for Enforcement at Kampala Metropolitan URA, outright smuggling has significantly reduced to around 7%, but miss-classifications, under-declarations, and under-valuations have gone up in recent years.
“Under declarations, which stand at 43% and miss-classification at 15%, in recent years URA has had 9,200 seizures and recovered Shs 88.2 billion as of March 2023. And it has so far collected Shs 21.1 trillion in the last two weeks before the end of this final year on June 30. It is expected to collect over Shs 29.3 trillion in the next financial year