Denis Kugonza Kateeba, Commissioner Domestic Taxes at URA
Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has revealed that it collected only UGX16.476Trn in revenue from July to December 2025, against the projected target of UGX17.5Trn.
Denis Kugonza Kateeba, Commissioner Domestic Taxes at URA made the revelation recently while presenting the 2026/27 National Budget Framework Paper, before Parliament’s Finance Committee.
He blamed the low revenue collections on disruptions from electoral activities.
“The total revenue collection was UGX16.476Trn against a target of UGX17.5Trn, registering a performance of 94.09%. This was due to the second quarter interruptions of the elections which have been ongoing going on where URA slowed down some activities to allow the political parties to mobilise their citizens and also the economy. Some taxpayers slowed down on their activities and we are confident that in the coming cycle, this new cycle of January to June, we shall recover rapidly and recover all the deficit,” Kugonza said.
During the interface, URA informed Parliament on a number of activities undertaken to boost recovery of tax arrears through several legal services, noting that such efforts contributed recovery of UGX186Bn from arrears management and through alternative dispute resolution, where cases completed saw URA realize revenue to a tune of UGX274Bn.
He added that through Customs enforcement operations carried out between July to December 2025, UGX41Bn was recovered against the target of UGX61Bn, but the dismal performance was also attributed to the electoral activities that saw URA slow down enforcement operations as the citizens were being mobilised for taxation.
In the coming 2026/27 national budget, URA has been allocated UGX877.296Bn, a project that is not different from the 2025/26 national budget, and of this, UGX400.258Bn will go towards payment of wages, while UGX412.250Bn will cater for non-wages and UGX64.788Bn is earmarked for development.
URA adds that efforts will be put on increasing compliance and increasing revenue growth and to achieve this, several measures like implementing authentic dispute resolution mechanisms to fast track recovery of taxes so to avoid clogging the position system, the courts with tax matters where they can be resolved under dispute resolution, as well as boosting capacity of staff through trainings.
“We are operationalising the tax academy, competence-based programmes and change management. Chair has highlighted, we have increased the number of staff, we have recruited, they need capacity building and it is cost effective to be trained through our tax academy where we have competencies and within the confines of the tax programmes. We are preparing the petroleum oil and gas solutions. We’re expecting oil to start flowing but this is the next financial year, the end of the calendar year and we need to prepare adequately so that when the oil revenue comes, we have a system which can manage it,” Kugonza said.
URA defended the selection of its priority areas citing a number of challenges it is facing including increased smuggling of goods due to various tax rates with other agencies, growing informal sector that is hard to reach and not registered in the tax register and increased loss of competent staff to other institutions and private sector.
