COMMENCEMENT OF THE TAXPAYER REGISTER

EXPANSION PROJECT (TREP).

The Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development Hon. , in her budget speech of the Financial Year 2013/14 proposed to provide a framework under which Revenue Authority (URA) will collaborate with Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB), Capital City Authority (KCCA) and Local Governments to identify taxpayers and collect taxes from small businesses which are hard to reach by URA.

The collaborating agencies have commenced the pilot of Joint Field Operations within Kampala under the Taxpayer Register Expansion Project (TREP) framework. This alliance will ease business registration for the traders and increase compliance by bringing more taxpayers to the tax net.

Through these joint operations; that shall use a combination of mobile offices and door- to-door visits while leveraging the existing processes and procedures of the collaborating agencies, for instance;

 The business community within Kampala shall be sensitised about the benefits of formal business registration. The joint team will be able to sensitize the taxpayers on the requirements/ process and procedures relating to; Tax Identification Number (TIN) Registration and the relevant taxes types, formalizing businesses (names), and trade licensing requirements at the same point.

 They shall also be sensitized about their rights and obligations with regard to payment of income taxes and trading licenses.  Furthermore, the mobile offices shall be a pilot of the first one stop business registration centre where the community will be assisted through the different procedures to formalize their businesses.  It is estimated that through this joint exercise, team shall reduce the time taken to formally register a business from 18 days to 5 days  The clients will be saved from the trouble routine visits by the three different agencies individually since all services are brought near the traders. Ultimately, the collaboration is geared at ensuring faster and quality service delivery, and increase revenue contribution from the informal sector through exchange of data centrally collected and shared by the collaborating agencies.

For further details please visit the nearest office of the collaborating agencies (URA, KCCA and URBS)