If you have been in Uganda for the past half year, used mobile money on a frequent basis, you must have seen it all. The introduction of the mobile money tax and social media tax bit the most out of telecom service consumers since the start of July 2018.
While the two were equally fought against by activists and a section of politicians, one was amended while the other was untouched.
We told you about how the OTT tax failed to beat the bar as had been planned by the executors, and gave you a brief outline on why the tax subscriptions and revenues will continue to decline. This is the one that was untouched.
However, with intervention from President Yoweri Museveni, the mobile money tax was debated on in less than a month after implementation with an argument that there should be an amendment to only deduct half a percentage off withdraws made, from the 1% that was earlier charged on all transactions made.
The amendment was made, despite telecoms declining to refund what they had charged, and the taxes have been collected.
A surplus registered
The quarterly report from Uganda Communications commission for July to September 2018 indicated a 5% growth in the number of mobile money subscriptions.
Similarly, data from Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) for the first half of the 2018/19 financial year indicates that the body collected over UGX 104.75 billion from mobile money tax for the period running from July to December 2018. The set target had been UGX 54.75 billion, implying that the body registered a surplus of close to UGX 50 billion.
Yet, for the OTT tax, UCC reported a collection of 5.6 billion in July 2018, a figure that dropped to just over UGX 4 billion in August, and consequently to UGX 3.9 billion in September.
To this, URA accounts for only UGX 21.12 billion in the six months from July to December 2018, which is far lower than the targeted UGX 135.21 billion.
