Uganda Revenue Authority Launches Mobile Bus To Boost Tax Education

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has launched a tax education mobile office aimed at supporting tax education and outreach programmes in support of the national agenda of Domestic Revenue Mobilisation.

This project comes shortly after URA revealed a registration of a growth in revenue and tax to GDP ratio, the highest growth registered in the last four years according to the revenue performance report.
In the Financial Year (FY) 2020/21, URA collected net revenue of UGX 19,263.00 billion and posted a growth in revenue of 14.99% in comparison to the FY 2019/20 and an estimated tax to GDP ratio of 12.99%.
The buses are designed to offer mobile tax office services especially to remote areas that lack proximal access to URA offices and electronic services.

This initiative roots its realisation from the European Union (EU) funding since FY 2018/19 that has since benefitted URA on a number of initiatives including the acquisition of two specialised mobile tax buses.
Speaking at the launch on Thursday, the Commissioner-General at URA, John Rujoki Musinguzi, said that the ultimate goal is to transform the revenue service for Uganda’s economic independence as enshrined in the URA vision.

This will thereby raise enough revenue to fund government and eliminate donor dependence. He commended all the stakeholders who contributed to the establishment of the whole project.

“I would like to thank everyone who has ensured that we have this bus delivered today. Special recognition goes to the European Union and the entire team at URA that has made this possible,” Musinguzi noted.

The prioritisation of the improvement of tax education in this FY 2021/22, URA does this in a bid to meet and exceed clients and stakeholder expectations and align with different government frameworks.

According to Musinguzi, the bus is expected to help the achievement of numerous goals. “The bus has been procured to facilitate the provision of services to clients in the field and it will have staff from the operational departments of URA,” he remarked.

More still, the bus will aid in handling of client’s tax related enquiries in places where URA has not reached before, handle technical issues like registration, amendments, payment assessments and all other tax related issues which will enable expansion of the Tax base. Moving forward, the buses will also avail knowledge through
Taxpayer awareness to clients in the field and answer any questions that may arise.

Musinguzi also launched URA Domestic Revenue Initiative for information (DRIFT) and the URA studio which is going to be used to produce programmes that will equip the taxpaying community with information to help them in their compliance. URA is now looking at mobilising UGX 22,363.51 billion of the UGX 22,425.37 billion, a target revenue approved by Parliament for the FY 2021/22. This is a 16.1% increase as compared to the revenue collected in FY 2020/21.

In this financial year, URA seeks to utilise the 30 years anniversary celebrations as an opportunity to galvanise the new strategic direction on which they will deliver the country to economic independence. In achieving this, URA intends to focus on key initiatives like; tax education and services, stakeholder engagement, process improvements, corporate governance and leveraging technology and data.