How Will Besigye Get Sh60bn?

SIR- Dr Kizza Besigye has been telling Ugandans that if elected President he will abolish graduated tax which is a source of income to local governments. Sixty five percent of what is collected remains in a sub-county. Some of it goes to the lower local councils. The other 35% goes to the district. The central government does not get any funds from graduated tax. In the whole country, about sh60bn is collected in graduated tax. This money helps the local governments to undertake various development programmes like putting fuel in graders to maintain feeder roads and payment of salaries of local staff. Therefore, for someone to promise abolishing graduated tax, he should tell Ugandans where he will get sh60 billion annually to replace what local governments get from graduated tax. Is he going to raise other indirect taxes on commodities in order to recover the sh60bn which will be lost in abolition of graduated tax? If Ugandans are not told how he is going to recover the sh60bn from graduated tax, then they should be prepared for an increase in taxes on either imports or locally produced goods. Abolishing taxes is not good because people must contribute to the goods and services extended to them by either the central or local government. For someone to promise to abolish graduated tax, he is in a way waging war against local governments and the LCs who benefit from it. Everybody knows very well that donors contribute a great deal to our budget. The donors get their funds from their tax payers. It is a wrong signal for us to abolish taxes while expecting to get more donor funds. Why should the donors give us money while we are abolishing some of our taxes in a situation where our tax base is still narrow? There are some problems with graduated tax, the major one being assessment. Some people with low incomes are assessed highly. President Museveni has promised to solve this problem by asking the minister of local government to revisit the assessment so that people are not over-assessed. He has already announced that youth who are paying graduated tax for the first time and have low incomes, should not pay more than sh3,000. He also said that people above 60 years old without a reasonable income should not pay graduated tax. These are tangible promises which should be tied to people's income and affordability. Moses Byaruhanga Secretary National Task Force Y.K.M.2001