The parliament of Uganda has passed into law, the Excise Duty (Amendment) Bill, 2018, that seeks to legalize the 0.5% tax on mobile money transactions.
The withdrawals on mobile money when the Act was passed earlier in July were chargeable with a 1% rate. However, days later, a directive from the president dropped the figure to 0.5% citing that the figure was a mistake.
The directive had never been posited in any statute to give it legal force.
Parliament yesterday, the 2nd October, debated a bill that was subsequently passed into law after a majority of the members of parliament accepted the enactment.
164 Members of Parliament voted to accept the bill, and pass it with the 0.5% tax levy whereas 124 were opposed to the amendment and wanted the tax to be removed entirely out of the total 288 MPs that were present in the house to debate the bill.
Despite this, there is still wide disagreement from the masses as to the payment of the tax on mobile money. This is one of the reasons some concerned citizens petitioned the constitutional court challenging its legality, in the wake of the passing of that law.
