The Ugandan tax collector URA has put the telecom giant MTN in the spotlight for evading customs duty tax imposed on imports for a period of about 8 years. According to the Daily Monitor, the tax body has accused MTN for under declaring, mis-classification of items, change of particulars, disassembling of units with an intention to conceal identity as well as applying for tax considerations among other things.
MTN’s General Manager, Corporate services and the chief of Legal counsel Mr Anthony Katamba said that
[signoff predefined=”Movie Review Signoff” icon=”icon-username”]We are not aware about any claims from Uganda Revenue Authority. I am Afraid somebody may be feeding you with wrong information.[/signoff]
URA however has concrete evidence of this (see URA Tax evaders Information Form below) which clearly shows that the telecom giant has been defaulting to pay the UGX 13B from 2004 to 2012 which mainly happened at Entebbe International Airport. Its has also emerged that both URA and MTN have had several meetings on the matter with no tangible agreement. What is clear so far is that MTN has already accepted their fault and paid about UGX 4B in tax refund and penalties to URA.
Mr Katamba further went on to say that the huge nature of imports by the company may cause some of them to be erroneous. He further said;
[signoff predefined=”Movie Review Signoff” icon=”icon-username”]We do a lot of importation from time to time given the nature of our business, so we may not be accurate all he time because of the frequent volume of our imports. But importantly we do not accept URA to sort out an issue like that in the press/media as our doors are always open. [/signoff]
MTN is one of Uganda’s biggest tax contributors.
[label]The Daily Monitor[/label]
