NAKAWA: The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has impounded a consignment of goods, among them toy guns, which they believe are being used to perpetrate crime in the country.
Mr Vincent Seruma, the URA director for corporate Communications, revealed that the toy guns were being sneaked into the country through the Entebbe airport.
“Depending on their level of sophistication, we do not allow items which promote criminality to be imported into the country,” he told journalists in Kampala yesterday.
He also paraded two men, Edward Lutalo and Edison Beine whom he said have been evading taxes.
Mr Seruma also warned importers against sharing their Tax Identification Numbers and e-mail passwords with clearing agents. He explained that some unscrupulous clearing agents use such emails and TIN numbers to under declare the tax value of the imports and when such goods are intercepted, often the TIN number and email address owner is not aware of such transactions.
He added that sometimes their staff connive with the clearing agents to under declare the tax value of the goods so that they share the difference.
This comes barely a week after URA published a list of companies engaged in fraudulent activities regarding Value Added Tax (VAT). The public notice issued by the Commissioner General, Ms Doris Akol last Friday showed that companies use fictitious invoices generated to portray a business transaction, while in actual sense there is no genuine supply/movement of goods and/or services. Of the 148 companies that URA listed in this regard, 93 (63 per cent) belong to foreigners, with at least 90 of those having Chinese directors.