Parliament has referred debate on the excise duty amendment bill 2024,after Mps rejected the 0.5 excise duty tax on cash withdrawals through Agency banking and mobile money transactions.
Government came up with this proposal, urging that the agency bankers had reduced the cost of people moving from their areas to look for banks ,so the savings in transport should be taxed .
How ever Mps said that this is unrealistic for Government to tax convenience of people because the agency bankers came up to fill the gap that had been left by the financial institutions.
The state minister of Finance was also forced to drop the 5% tax on land sale gains from land sold in the cities and municipalities.
The proposal was contained in the Income Tax Amendment Bill 2024 wanting to introduce a tax provision on disposal of non-business assets at a rate of 5% on the gain upon disposal
The Bill had proposed additional obligations on the tax payer to pay the tax within fifteen (15) days after the disposal or transfer of the non-business asset, and also requires a tax payer to notify the Commissioner General of Uganda Revenue Authority in writing within 15 days from the date of disposal.
However, members of Parliament including Mukono municipality Mp Betty Nambooze Bakireke and Jinja city west mp Dr.Timothy Batuwa rejected the move, indicating that the proposal for the expansion of the scope of capital gains tax to include land in cities and municipalities does not fall within the principles of equity in taxation and should be dropped.
Meanwhile ,Kira Municipality Mp also shadow Minister for finance Ibrahim Ssemujju Nganda questioned the audacity by Gov’t to impose a Shs1550 tax levy on each liter of fuel, yet their own cars are fueled by taxpayers.
While presenting a minority report to parliament on excise duty tax on fuel,Nganda described the proposed tax on fuel from 1450 shillings per litre to 1550 shillings per liter as greedy move by the government to tax already heavily taxed taxpayers in Uganda.
According to a minority report by the opposition MPs on the finance committee,
Government collects Shs1.6 trillion shillings on petrol, l.l trillion on diesel and about Shs3Bn on Kerosene and these taxes on both petrol and diesel are the key driver of fuel pump price and that Uganda levies the highest tax on fuel in the region.
