URA rolls out e-receipting, invoicing system

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) will be rolling out the Electronic Fiscal Receipting and Invoicing Solution (EFRIS) to provide electronic tax solutions beginning July 1.

According to URA, the system is designed to improve business efficiencies and reduce the cost of compliance through improved record keeping among taxpayers and mitigate tax administration shortfalls while promoting efficiency.

E-invoice is a new application that allows one to safely, easily and at no cost issue electronic tax documents and check their validity, by logging onto the system or the URA web portal.

Mr Ian Rumanyika, public and corporate affairs manager at URA, said the tax body has introduced e-receipting and invoicing to address challenges such as suppression of sales, non-issuance of tax receipts or invoices.

EFRIS will curb false refund claims, fictitious purchases with no physical movement of goods and unverifiable claims by taxpayers due to loss of records.

“URA has introduced e-receipting and invoicing to bring the large informal sector on board. We have been having limited access to taxpayers’ records but with this system, more businesses will come on board,” he said.

He also explained that invoice trading by unscrupulous individuals such as employees of companies, accountants and tax agents will be curbed.

“They have been selling previously issued invoices to final customers to third parties to claim false input tax credit hence abusing the VAT mechanism,” he said.

How it will work
Mr Rumanyika explained that when a sale is made, transactional details will be captured in the seller’s system invoicing system (ERP), encrypted and transmitted to URA in real time to generate e-receipts and e-invoices.

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