URA reports Shs240b collection shortfall

Kampala – Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has reported that it has a Shs240 billion revenue collection shortfall for the first 9 months of the financial year 2016/17.
Announcing the revenue collections for the 9 months to March 2017, Ms Doris Akol, the URA commissioner general, revealed that collections were below target because of the weak economy and decline in imports.

“…the macroeconomic environment was characterized by economic slowdown caused by prolonged drought, constrained aggregate demand and global uncertainty leading to a revision of GDP growth rate to 4.5 percent during the FY 2016/17 compared to the projected outturn of 5%,” she said during a media briefing in Kampala on Wednesday.
She noted that the result of this was low economic activity that led to lower than expected revenue collections. This is indicated in the low uptake of bank credit, signalling weak business growth that can contribute to revenue growth.

In the 9 months to March 2017, URA had net revenue collections of Shs11 trillion, which is a 13.5 per cent over the same period in 2015/16. In the final three months of the financial year, URA notes that it could collect another Shs2 trillion but will still be short of the revenue target of Shs13.4 trillion set by the government at the start of the financial year.
Domestic taxes that contribute about 52 per cent of the revenue over the period registered a Shs28 billion surplus. Over the same period, domestic taxes have been performing within the targeted range. However, international trade taxes, derived from imports, have continued to underperform, largely contributing to the shortfall. The shortfall is likely to force the government to borrow money from the domestic market in order to meet expenditure needs.

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