Overview:
URA says a TIN number will help in monitoring the compliance of the taxpayers and also include those that have not been paying, so as to ensure more people are in the taxpayer net.
Ugandan artistes have held a meeting with Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) as part of measures to reach a common ground on formal taxation of the industry.
Under their umbrella body, the Uganda Musicians Association, the artistes said they agreed with URA that there is need for more sensitisation in regard to the requirement for them to have Tax Identification Numbers (TINs).
“We held a successful meeting with URA in regard to the taxation of our industry. A lot was discussed and talks into the matter are ongoing with lots of meetings lined up. We mutually agreed that there is a need for Tax sensitization within the Artistes as a top priority,” the association said in a statement on social media on Wednesday, 04 January 2023.
URA says a TIN number will help in monitoring the compliance of the taxpayers and also include those that have not been paying, so as to ensure more people are in the taxpayer net.
Sarah Chelangat, the URA Commissioner of Domestic Taxes, said one of the main achievements in the last year has been to simplify the process of acquiring the TIN which is now a mandatory requirement.
“We held a successful meeting with URA in regard to the taxation of our industry. A lot was discussed and talks into the matter are ongoing with lots of meetings lined up. We mutually agreed that there is a need for Tax sensitization within the Artistes as a top priority,”
Uganda Musicians Association
URA rolled out the instant TIN, a web-based TIN application procedure and in turn removed the tedious complicated processes that usually resulted in errors by taxpayers.
“These complications forced many clients to resort to the tax agents and internet cafes for help which charged exorbitant fees, and for those who could not afford, acquiring a TIN became long, tedious and sometimes intolerable,” says Chelangat.
Currently, a taxpayer only needs a National ID or, for companies, a Certificate of Incorporation and access the URA web portal for the services which can take five minutes, according to her. URA has also made efforts to ease the return filing procedures through the web-based return template for presumptive business taxpayers, or those whose turnover does not exceed 150 million Shillings a year.