The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) collected Shs4.45 trillion in revenue in the first quarter of the current financial year of 2021/2022.
Mr John Musinguzi, the URA Commissioner General, said while the collection is higher than the Shs3.1 trillion collected in FY 2020/21, it is short of their target of Shs4.95 trillion for this quarter by Shs499.4b.
Mr Musinguzi told journalists at the URA Headquarters in Kampala on Thursday that the tax body is hoping to collect Shs22.4 this FY 2021/22.
Nevertheless, he said, the collection reflects a growth in revenue, since the Shs4.45 trillion is an increase of 9.57% from the first quarter of the past financial year.
“The trend analysis for the last five years, indicates continuous growth in the net revenue collections. The highest year to year growth was observed in the FY 2018/19 (17.82%) and the lowest recorded in FY 2020/21 (1.62%) which is mainly accredited to the adverse impact of COVID-19 as shown in the figure below,” he said.
“In FY2021/22, there are signs of economic recovery as portrayed by a growth in revenue of 9.57%,” Musinguzi said.
Musinguzi attributed the 9.57% growth of partly to the URA administrative initiatives like arrears management which resulted into a revenue recovery of Shs322.63Bn and cargo management to curb under and miss declaration which led to a revenue gain of Shs11.51Bn.
These, he said supplemented collections from normal flows.
Musinguzi expressed optimism that URA will hit its target, having achieved a growth in revenue of 14.99% in the FY2020/21.
He said for the remaining period of the FY2021/2022 (October 2021 to June 2022), they target to collect Shs17.4Tn which is 77.82% of the annual target of UGX. 22.3Tn.
“URA is targeting Shs6.104.64 trillion for quarter two,” he added.
On sectoral contributions, the Domestic Revenue Collections were Shs2.65Tn, registering a growth of 8.11% (Shs199.10Bn), compared to same period in FY2020/21.
Of these, Pay as You Earn contributed Shs766Bn, VAT Shs712Bn, Witholding Tax Shs455Bn, Local Exercise Duty Shs366Bn, Corporate Shs78Bn and others Shs266Bn.
Musinguzi says the collections were below the target of Shs3, 096.31Bn by Shs440.75Bn.
Customs revenue collections were Shs1.8Tn against a target of Shs1.9Tn registering a growth of 8.88 percent (Shs152.14Bn) in comparison to FY 2020/21. However, the collections were Shs106.54Bn below target.
74.02% of the revenue was generated from the top 5 sectors during the first quarter.
“The wholesale and retail trade sector had the biggest contribution, which amounted to UGX Shs1,361.14Bn (30.10%). The manufacturing sector followed with a contribution of Shs1,067.27Bn (23.61%), the financial activities contributed Shs353.66Bn (7.82%), while Shs338.36Bn (2.65%) was generated from the information and communication sector and Shs202.98Bn (4.49) from public administration,” he said.
Ramathan Ggoobi, the Permanent Secretary and Secretary to Treasury yesterday released Shs5.8Tn expenditure for Quarter two where URA was given Shs82.1Bn to help them in revenue mobilisation.