{"id":2915,"date":"2021-03-29T10:50:54","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T10:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ugandaupdatenews.com\/?p=2915"},"modified":"2021-03-30T14:53:32","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T14:53:32","slug":"ura-commissioner-general-seeks-new-powers-to-arrest-and-close-businesses-for-not-paying-taxes-as-lawyers-gear-up-to-challenge-the-tax-body-in-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/ura-commissioner-general-seeks-new-powers-to-arrest-and-close-businesses-for-not-paying-taxes-as-lawyers-gear-up-to-challenge-the-tax-body-in-court\/","title":{"rendered":"GOVT PROPOSES TO AMEND TAX PROCEDURES CODE WITH MORE POWERS FOR TAX COLLECTORS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Our Senior Reporters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a move that legal experts say will be challenged in courts of law , the Ministry of Finance is proposing to parliament more powers for Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) to deal with people who are persistently in default of their tax obligations .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new Tax Procedures Code (Amendment Bill,2021 ) seeks for parliament to amend the law and introduce a procedure empowering the URA Commissioner General \u00a0to arrest\u00a0 or temporarily close businesses while conducting investigations for tax matters .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commissioner  General if parliament allows him\/her to have their way , will have powers to record a charge and a caution statement and also execute bonds for the arrested accused persons . But legal experts say that such powers are unconstitutional because the tax body will be the investigator , prosecutor and  judge at the same time .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe hope that parliament thoroughly studies the machinations by the tax body and come to the conclusion that such unlimited powers  basically tend to bypass courts of law and other constitutional  investigative arms of government are not fair  and will certainly  be challenged in the  Constitutional Court ,\u201d a seasoned lawyer told leading on-line publishers – ugandaupdatenews.com<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tax body is under a lot of pressure to raise revenue in taxes after persistent poor performance in revenue collection where it has not met its targets for many years largely due to corruption  that led President Yoweri Museveni to sack many of its senior officers and appoint new office holders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tax experts have argued that URA must be innovative and expand the tax base by bringing in the tax bracket -many Ugandans who are not paying taxes. \u201cThe idea of over -taxing the same small group of tax complaint Ugandans -in will not work in the long run. URA should reach out to as many people to  meet  their tax obligations and thus increase the tax revenues,\u201d the Tax Experts argued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Our Senior Reporters In a move that legal experts say will be challenged in courts of law , the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/News_Uganda_AA_Parliamentpay.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3038,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/ura-gets-100bn-buget-boost-to-recruit-staff-and-collect-more-revenue-in-taxes\/","url_meta":{"origin":2915,"position":0},"title":"URA GETS 100BN BUGET BOOST TO RECRUIT STAFF AND COLLECT MORE REVENUE IN TAXES","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"April 17, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Parliament has approved an additional UGSHS. 100bn for Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) to recruit staff and improve on its revenue collection performance. The additional UGSHS. 100bn will increase the tax body's operation budget from UGSHS.436bn to UGSHS 536bn. According, to John Musinguzi the Commissioner General of URA, parliament's support to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Economy"","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/News_Uganda_AA_Parliamentpay.jpg","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/News_Uganda_AA_Parliamentpay.jpg 1x, https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/News_Uganda_AA_Parliamentpay.jpg 1.5x, https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/News_Uganda_AA_Parliamentpay.jpg 2x, https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/News_Uganda_AA_Parliamentpay.jpg 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4838,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/tax-experts-call-upon-ura-to-scale-up-its-barazas-information-and-ecudation-dissemination-programs-to-have-many-more-ugandans-pay-taxes\/","url_meta":{"origin":2915,"position":1},"title":"TAX EXPERTS CALL UPON URA TO SCALE UP ITS BARAZAS, INFORMATION AND ECUDATION DISSEMINATION PROGRAMS TO HAVE MANY MORE UGANDANS PAY TAXES","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"December 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Tax experts have urged Uganda Revenue Authority \u00a0(URA) to intensify its civic engagement programs to educate and inform Ugandans about the importance of paying taxes on time especially among the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to boost tax revenue collection in the country. 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