By Andrew Irumba
Doris Akol, the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) Commissioner General, has tasked government to scrap the OTT tax, saying it is nonperforming and has a high evasion rate.
Akol made this revelation at Parliament where she was meeting legislators on the Parliamentary Committee on Finance led by Rubanda East MP Henry Musasizi, which she was meeting with a team from URA on Tuesday.
The URA boss proposed the withdrawal of the OTT policy given its rate of evasion and non performance . She has further proposed for the amendment of the Excise duty Act in respect of the excisable goods and services to provide for mobile data.
Akol also proposed the selective provision of incentives to investments whose social and economic benefits are significant.
She said that this will reduce unnecessary incentives and exemptions since they contribute to narrowing the tax base.
OTT, which stands for ‘Over-the-top’ tax, was introduced by government in 2016. OTT refers to data sent over the Internet that bypasses traditional mediums. Two common examples include OTT content and OTT messaging. (productmanagementexercises)
However, it should also be noted that MP Robert Kyagulanyi aka Bobi Wine, Eddy Mutwe and several others are facing charges of protesting against OTT in 2016, which they claimed was unfair and exploitative.
