Commissioner General, URA Musinguzi calls for MPs strengthened collaboration to implement the Domestic Revenue Mobilization Strategy.
Drake Nyamugabwa
In recognition of the need for more revenue generation, the Government of Uganda through Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) prepared a Domestic Revenue Mobilization Strategy (DRMS), a five-year program that ends in January 2025, intended to strengthen Uganda's capacity to generate sufficient revenues to finance its expenditures and hence reduce dependence on debts.
During the strategic engagement between Members of Parliament and URA with support from USAID held on Monday 14th March 2022, the discussion engaging the Honorable Members of Parliament on the implementation of the Domestic Revenue Mobilization Strategy (DRMS) highlighted that in order to sustainably finance the development agenda, there is a need to give priority to addressing the tax effort.
The theme of the strategic engagement with MPs was “Liberating Uganda from Economic Dependence".
The Commissioner-General URA, John Musinguzi said told MPS in the above picture that URA is determined to improve its efficiency in management and administration of the tax system and to collect every penny of taxes due during the implementation period of the DRMS, with the support of everyone including MPS in realizing Uganda’s economic independence aimed at raising Uganda’s Growth Domestic Product (GDP) ratio
“The core objective of the DRMS is to improve revenue collection, lifting Uganda’s tax-to-GDP ratio to between 16-18% within the next five financial years.
The DRMS is a 5-year medium-term strategy for government revenues, to guarantee a reasonable, realistic, and practical approach to sustainable resource mobilization” he told MPs.
He said that URA is focusing more on educating the citizens on tax to enable realize the benefits of paying tax.
“We're focusing on increasing tax education through implementing a needs-based strategy that is equipping taxpayers with the relevant knowledge of their responsibilities, rights, obligations to tax, and the importance of business formalization” he said
The Commissioner-General called upon MPS to further strengthen the strategic partnership between URA and Parliament through being champions of tax and setting an example of tax compliance through paying taxes and tackling corruption to ensure that resources collected are optimally utilized.
The Permanent Secretary Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development Ramathan Ggoobi pictued above said that the main aim of the DRMS is to widen the tax base, but not to increase taxes aimed at bringing the untaxed economy to the tax net adding that 51% of our GDP comes from the informal sector.
“We should all note that the overall strategy of the government is to ensure that tax collections match Government expenditure. Our goal is to fully finance the national budget using domestically generated revenues without borrowing” he said
He added that research has shown that for any country to develop, it must collect about 20% of its GDP and that the realization of this strategy requires a collective effort and commitment across government, civil society, private sector, and development partners to achieve citizen buy-in for the reforms outlined therein.
