Tax and Fiscal Governance: Is VAT milking the broken tax cow dry? An analysis of tax trends and impacts on EAC small traders and citizens, with a case of the recent traders’ boycotts in Uganda

With dwindling foreign aid, it appears the governments in East Africa have resorted to squeezing everywhere to raise some dime. Taxation may be good however, when the extremes are beyond reasonableness, countries are bound to break the back of the economies they aspire to build. Could the recent demonstrations in Kampala show a mismatch of tax policy and that the tax cow may be now broken or is it a case of misunderstanding of the tax system and the dividends of taxation?

By Robert Ssuuna, Researcher, Trainer, and Consultant,

Governance and Economic Policy Centre

Recently media in Uganda has been inundated by the stand-off between the Government and traders in the Central Business District of Kampala’s Capital Uganda locally known as Kikuubo with traders choosing to close shops in protest. The protest which later spread to other cities like Jinja, Mityana, and Masaka was triggered by the implementation of the Electronic Fiscal Receipt and Invoicing System (EFRIS) by the Uganda Revenue Authority.