Stop businesses, multinational companies from dodging taxes

Construction, real estate and traders associations leaders in Uganda have distanced themselves from missing trader fraud, describing it as unacceptable and criminal. 

As industry associations, they say they do not condone illicit financial flows (IFF), including missing traders which involves stealing Value Added Tax (VAT) by generating fictitious invoices and receipts.  

Although business membership associations discourage their members from engaging in tax fraud and related abuses, Daily Monitor investigations, corroborated by Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) findings, indicate that high net worth individuals as well as several local businesses, plus a number of multinational corporations, still perpetuate missing trader fraud without shame.    

Two years ago, according to data from Ministry of Finance, about 2,100 companies were identified for comprehensive review to determine their tax liabilities resulting from tax evasion and related tax abuses. 

Over the same time span, compliance actions including 142 domestic tax compliance audits and 282 customs post clearance audit, 7,946 compliance advisories, 51 spot inventories, 2,752 compliance visits, 42 self-health and 3,766 returns were examined to determine whether taxpayers correctly assessed, reported, paid their tax liability. 

As a result, about Shs151 billion which is three quarters of the budget allocated under Small Businesses Recovery Fund (SBRF), was recovered in revenue as a result of the action. SBRF is a matching grant, with the Government contributing Shs100 billion for the Fund and other Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) contributing 100 billion to address the financial challenges of small enterprises that have experienced hardships due to the measures undertaken to control the spread of Covid- 19 across the country.

How this fraud affects you?
Missing trader fraud affects all businesses that submit honest VAT returns, according to Mr Andrew Kyambadde Mukasa, a tax expert.  He says: “These criminal traders use fraudulent gains to undercut your prices, creating unfair competition and distorting the market.” 

But revenue that government could have injected into social services, ends up as super profits for the business owners and individuals, many of whom stash such funds in international financial institutions, that are in tax havens.

However, this problem is not unique to Uganda alone. Research indicates that missing trader fraud totals in the UK alone came to as much as £1 billion in 2015. It is estimated that it costs the EU up to €60 billion each year.  Further, it emerged that what is more troubling is the possibility that much of missing trader fraud is carried out by criminal gangs, who can use the money they “earn” to finance both human trafficking and terrorism.

Just like the EU member states, government of Uganda through URA and Uganda Registration Service Bureau (URSB) are finding ways to make it harder for fraudsters to get away with their crime.

One key tactic is the move towards digital VAT reporting through the Electronic Fiscal Receipting and Invoicing System (EFRIS). This reduces VAT return errors, increases visibility and accountability, and helps tax authorities to spot fraudulent VAT reclaim faster. By pinpointing VAT fraud early in the process, the government has a better chance of catching ‘missing traders’ before they go missing.

Although still in the early days, under this system, businesses are plugged into the government platform which retains a copy of all transactions, making it far more difficult for a company to fraudulently charge VAT and then disappear. Its application, however, currently is not perfect yet and many businesses have been rendered redundant at their own cost to fulfil a requirement that is “most beneficial to the tax government.”  

URSB is also trying to compel by law companies to disclose the names of its directors and beneficiaries as a requirement to register an entity. This will include further collaboration between URA and URSB with a view to eliminate this vice – illegitimately claiming VAT refund.

As a consumer, insist on a receipt and it should be in your name. So, next time you go to a restaurant, a supermarket or any other commercial outlet, ask for that a receipt once you make your payment.  

Catching fraudsters 

One key tactic is the move towards digital VAT reporting through the Electronic Fiscal Receipting and Invoicing System (EFRIS). This reduces VAT return errors, increases visibility and accountability, and helps tax authorities to spot fraudulent VAT reclaim faster. By pinpointing VAT fraud early in the process, the government has a better chance of catching ‘missing traders’ before they go missing.

Although still in the early days, under this system, businesses are plugged into the government platform which retains a copy of all transactions, making it far more difficult for a company to fraudulently charge VAT and then disappear.

Its application, however, currently is not perfect yet and many businesses have been rendered redundant at their own cost to fulfil a requirement that is “most beneficial to the tax government.”