KAMPALA – The Uganda Revenue Authority – URA has hosted a Service Excellent Week in which they listened to the feedback from the taxpayers but also committed to maintaining patriotism, integrity, professionalism and most importantly to transforming from Authority to Service.
The engagement also sought to make taxpayers familiar with the URA system in which they are mandated to file returns.
“I’d like to start by appreciating you for your commitment and partnership in helping our country by faithfully paying your taxes but also to appreciate your compliance and commitment in this journey of transforming our nation and making it self-sufficient,” said Mr. John Musinguzi – URA boss on the second day of the three-day workshop on Thursday.
“I want to retaliate my deep and sincere gratitude to you and the entire taxpaying community for your sacrifice and dedication to the collective mission of our national development.”
He pledged continued simplified, timely, reliable, convenient revenue services anywhere, anytime at the minimum cost possible.
“This means that you should expect a consistently high-quality service characterized by ease of access to all our service points, simplified business processes, a high level of transparency, integrity, and timely feedback in the resolution of issues.”
According to him, with the previous feedback, they (URA) have progressively made enhancements to their service platforms and processes including; recently upgraded work web portal, ledgers and new communication platforms, among others.
“I would like to hear your ideas on how we can continuously improve our services. I firmly believe that we can only transition from the state we are in now to a service oriented organisation by listening keenly to your feedback and ideas on how we can improve our service offering.”
Mr. Musinguzi added, “Whether it is a miscommunication that has been coming to your mailbox, asking you for information that you know nothing about, whatever it is that any citizen or economic player in this country has been struggling with, this is the week to resolve it.”
Mr. Kakoza Alisious – an engineer commended URA for excellent service delivery but regretted the utilization of their taxes by the Government.
“Naturally, no one can take their properties to a thief, the thief comes at night with maybe a gun and takes the property. As URA, tell the government where you are taking our money, as long as it continues to look as a thief to us, we shall always wait until a thief comes with a gun (tax collection).”
“We want to realize that the government is giving us services, we shall pay our taxes without fight,” he added.
Another taxpayer complained about the complicated URA service system – noting that a big number of they don’t know how to use.
“We can easily get Tax Identification Number but after that, the rest is so complicated. You need to educate us more about your system, otherwise, we cannot file the returns.”
Mr. Turyasingura Monday from Jinja noted, “your (URA) teams are only giving us TINs and nothing more. I was personally given wrong information by your staff which led me to lose a lot of money leading to collapse of my business.”
A one Matovu raised an issue taxing businesses at their infancy stages leading to collapse.
“In 2008, I registered a company [because] I had long desired to be an entrepreneur but I failed because of taxes. I had to run away back to employment.”
