NSSF refuses to lend URA $10m to build headquarters
THE National Social Security Fund has refused to lend the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) $10m to construct its headquarters.
By Vision reporter
THE National Social Security Fund has refused to lend the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) $10m to construct its headquarters.
“NSSF had agreed to lend $10m to URA for the construction of a URA headquarters building. However, NSSF has declined to honour its understanding with URA as a result of the Temangalo Saga,†the vice-chairperson of the finance committee, Charles Olweny Ojok told Parliament on Wednesday.
He was presenting the committee’s report on the macroeconomic plan and indicative budget framework for 2009/2010 to 2013/2014.
The committee observed that URA incurs about sh3b every year in rental charges and requires about sh23.85b to construct an office block.
The committee observed that URA owed NSSF sh13.2b in arrears, which attracts an annual interest of sh1.8b (14%).
The committee also noted that tax arrears continue to accumulate and now stand at about sh150b.
Olweny said the reason for the accumulation was inadequate resources and facilitation to locate and recover taxes from migrant taxpayers. He added that the tax body did not have the capacity to implement the prosecution policy and that there was low cooperation from third party stakeholders.
The committee observed that there were high tax revenue losses due to failure to effectively tax rental incomes mainly from commercial buildings like shopping malls.
URA intends to register all commercial buildings and utilise tenancy agreements to determine actual rental incomes.
From the proposed allocations provided in 2009/10 medium term expenditure framework ceiling, URA projects a funding gap of sh35.13b of which sh30.35b is recurrent and sh4.78b is for development component.
The committee recommended that additional sh35.13b be provided to the authority to enable it meet the revenue collection target of sh4.4 trillion for 2009/10.
THE National Social Security Fund has refused to lend the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) $10m to construct its headquarters.
“NSSF had agreed to lend $10m to URA for the construction of a URA headquarters building. However, NSSF has declined to honour its understanding with URA as a result of the Temangalo Saga,†the vice-chairperson of the finance committee, Charles Olweny Ojok told Parliament on Wednesday.
He was presenting the committee’s report on the macroeconomic plan and indicative budget framework for 2009/2010 to 2013/2014.
The committee observed that URA incurs about sh3b every year in rental charges and requires about sh23.85b to construct an office block.
The committee observed that URA owed NSSF sh13.2b in arrears, which attracts an annual interest of sh1.8b (14%).
The committee also noted that tax arrears continue to accumulate and now stand at about sh150b.
Olweny said the reason for the accumulation was inadequate resources and facilitation to locate and recover taxes from migrant taxpayers. He added that the tax body did not have the capacity to implement the prosecution policy and that there was low cooperation from third party stakeholders.
The committee observed that there were high tax revenue losses due to failure to effectively tax rental incomes mainly from commercial buildings like shopping malls.
URA intends to register all commercial buildings and utilise tenancy agreements to determine actual rental incomes.
From the proposed allocations provided in 2009/10 medium term expenditure framework ceiling, URA projects a funding gap of sh35.13b of which sh30.35b is recurrent and sh4.78b is for development component.
The committee recommended that additional sh35.13b be provided to the authority to enable it meet the revenue collection target of sh4.4 trillion for 2009/10.