By Spy Uganda
Anti corruption Court sitting in Kololo on Wednesday sent Directors of Wellex Hardware Ltd, Jigar Chandarana and two others to ‘University of understanding’ after being convicted for generating & selling fictitious invoices.
𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐄 FOR ISSUING 𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐔𝐒 INVOICES!
Directors of Wellex Hardware Ltd – Jigar Chandarana and Two (02) others have been convicted by the Anti-Corruption Court in Kololo for generating & selling fictitious invoices.#TaxFraudAlertUG | #MpaEreceiptYange pic.twitter.com/YbrUX2OU5H
— Uganda Revenue Authority (@URAuganda) June 14, 2023
Tax fraud schemes in Uganda are currently taking on many faces as a means to avoid paying taxes. However, URA says is alert and has thus developed a number of strategies to tackle the vice. URA says is heavily relying on intelligence-led operations, and through these, a number of fictitious companies have been netted.
Recently, 7 companies involved in suspicious transactions like invoice trading were netted and these include; Izimba Aaron,44 an accountant and director with Izimba & Company Certified Public Accountants. His actions, according to Stuart Aheebwa, the Supervisor Litigation at URA, caused tax loss worth UGX 2.8 billion as a result of falsifying trade invoices and misusing some of his clients’ Tax Identification Numbers (TINs). Izimba also allegedly changed the passwords of some of his clients’ TINs and transacted on their behalf.
Denis Kugonza, the Commissioner of Tax Investigations at URA says the taxpayers if found guilty will be VAT deregistered and their claimed Input VAT is disallowed by URA.
According to the policy, section 62H(c)of the Tax Procedures Code (Amendment) Act, 2022 explains that a taxpayer commits an offense if he or she makes a false or misleading statement in the information return. Upon conviction, the offense attracts a fine not exceeding 2500 currency points for each day of default or imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years or both. Each currency point amounts to UGX. 20,000/=.
