Uganda Revenue Authority organized an interactive discourse with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Gulu yesterday where they offered an olive branch to taxpayers through tax education and addressing issues unique to them as a humanitarian sector.

Andrew Kyakonye, the tax education team lead took participants through a live demonstration on how to apply to become a Withholding Tax (WHT) agent and equally detailed the ins and outs of WHT as a tax type.

“As an NGO, you must register as a WHT agent for you to be able to withhold PAYE of your employees which you must remit to URA. Also, ensure that all your employees have TINs,” Kyakonye cautioned.

It should be noted that NGOs are designated Withholding Tax agents by nature of their work where they mostly deal with suppliers and vendors of goods. They are also eligible to remit Pay As You Earn (PAYE) to URA which they must withhold.

During the course of discussions, taxpayers cited issues of additional assessments of income tax, outright rejections of tax exemption applications, denial of applications to change their tax periods and some of their suppliers having scanty tax knowledge in regards to WHT.

Sserunkuuma Ponsiano, Domestic Tax officer Gulu, while representing the Northern Regional Manager Arthur Akol, provided clarity alluding most of these issues to taxpayers submitting incomplete or wrong returns, providing little or no evidence documents, and some of them not adhering to URA’s calls of tax engagements.

He therefore encouraged them to utilize the URA Gulu regional office, the resources on the URA Portal and URA TV on YouTube to enhance their tax knowledge so as to improve their compliance.

To mitigate the above-mentioned issues, taxpayers called upon URA to intensify sector-based tax education, and if possible, have similar engagements at least twice or once every quarter to refresh their tax knowledge and inform them of the new tax amendments they may not be privy to.

In his closing remarks, the Assistant Commissioner of Tax Education, Dr. Micah Samuel Gaalya said, “We want to get for you unique solutions to your unique tax issues to serve you better. We believe it is through such face-to-face engagements that we can make ourselves relevant to you. Please dialogue with us, and collaborate with us to make Uganda better.”

By Elizabeth Nakiru