URA impounds 20 luxury cars over unpaid taxes

By Samuel Sanya

KAMPALA - The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has recovered sh25b in taxes and fines in crackdown operations to close gaps and meet annual revenue targets.

The tax body said this week that most of the money had been lost in smuggling, undervaluation, misdeclarations, concealment and other tax offences.

It said the recoveries were made after intensified enforcement operations between November 2013 and October 2014.

Last year, URA missed its revenue collection targets by sh475b. It had a target of sh8.5trillion in the last financial year. This financial year, the target has increased to sh9.8 trillion.

James Kisaale, the URA assistant commissioner for enforcement, said undervaluation tops the number of tax crimes, garnering the highest recoveries of sh9.9b. Misdeclaration brought in sh8.3b, smuggling sh3.1b, other offences sh3.4b and concealment sh470m.

The revelation was made at a press conference by URA at its headquarters mid-this week.

Kisaale said ivory worth sh3b was recovered in the operations and is currently in the custody of the tax body.

He revealed that during the period, a total of 20 high-performance vehicles, with a total tax worth of sh370m, were impounded. Of these, 12 were Range Rover sport models; BMW’s, Mercedes Benzes and Audis.

“We have found that many of the high performance cars with DR Congo registration plates were fraudulently acquired. We are engaging our colleagues at DR Congo customs over the luxury cars among other things."
 

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Kisaale and another URA official displaying some of the smuggled counterfeit spirits

Kisaale said some of the discoveries were made with the help of the electronic tracking systems and electronic cargo scanners on cargo trucks.

The cargo tracking has also revealed incidences of thugs attempting to rob the trucks as they move from Mombasa, while the driver is off-guard.

He said the scanners are able to detect concealed and undeclared cargo hidden within cargo trucks. Kisaale said differences in tax regimes on rice and phones with Tanzania and Rwanda, respectively, has increased incidences of smuggling.

The top-smuggled goods in the period were garments worth sh1.9b, rice worth sh219m, hardware materials worth sh866m, electricals worth sh459.8m and agro-chemicals worth sh329m.

Kisaale noted that the rise in smuggling of agro-chemicals is a result of new taxes in the sector at the start of the financial year.

The taxes were recently removed by Parliament.

Diversions of transit cargo consisting of sugar, cooking oil, rice and textiles yielded sh490m.

Julius Nkwasire, the manager in charge of enforcement, said informants, whose intelligence led to the 5635 seizures, were rewarded with 10% of the value of tax recovered.