Masaka traders query tax rates

The business operators claim that the new tax rates are high and do not take into account the type of businesses.

Masaka

The business community in Masaka Municipality has expressed discontent over the decision by authorities to increase trade licence fees. “They did not make the estimates according to the size of the business, but rather levied uniform figures according to streets,” Mr Yasin Mayanja, a trader at Hobert Street, told the Daily Monitor last week.

Late last month, authorities said for a photo studio, operators would pay Shs202,000 per year up from Shs90,000 last year.
Supermarkets are supposed to pay a levy of Shs671,000 up from Shs340,000, while wholesale traders are supposed to pay up to Shs504,000 up from Shs225,000 last year, among other businesses.

Operators of women salons are to fork out Shs340,000 up from Shs150,000. Traders have described the move as unrealistic. Ms Rosemary Nakalema, a restaurant owner in Nyendo Ssenyange Division, claimed that the new tax policy was full of contradictions.

Complaints
“Already there were complaints about the sudden and rapid increase of the trade licence fee last year which so many of us have not yet got used to and now new rates have been brought up so soon,” Ms Nakalema said.

However, Mr Johnson Munono Balyantuma, the town clerk, said the new rates were introduced by the Ministry of Trade and are effective in all 11 municipalities across the country. He added that he had no powers of reversing the directive. The traders are considering petitioning the area Member Parliament, Mr Mathius Mpuuga Nsamba, over the matter.

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