PARLIAMENT – A section of Legislators on the Parliamentary Finance Committee have rejected a proposal by Government to start taxing businesses that have been making losses for over seven years.
While appearing before the Committee today, Bahati argued that Government had noticed that a number of companies were hiding behind the veil of making losses to evade taxes and the new tax proposals was aimed at dealing with such schemes.
However, the MPs rejected Bahati’s argument saying the business community shouldn’t be blamed for Uganda Revenue Authority’s failure to carry out audits of loss-making companies and accused Bahati of wasting Parliament’s time by reintroducing a matter that was rejected by Parliament last year.
It should be recalled that the same proposal was brought before Parliament and was thrown out by MPs.
Budadiri East MP, Nandala Mafabi tasked the Minister to explain the name he would give to the tax he is to impose on loss-making businesses; “What would be the name of the tax that will be collected from businesses making losses?”
Patrick Isiagi (Kachumbala County) also weighed into the matter asking the Ministry of Finance to close down URA if it has failed to conduct audits to establish companies evading taxes.
He said: “Can you tell us that URA has failed in audit because we pay them a salary. Can you assure us that you can’t manage? Some people invest in these businesses and the best you can have is to order them to close. Why am I paying salary of investigators in URA?”
