Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) has established revenue checkpoints in countries where Ugandan exports are prone to misinvoicing.

The authority is particularly concerned about the misinvoicing of coffee exports.

Revenue capture

The URA has established offices in Kenya, UAE and China in a move the authority hopes will save Uganda millions of dollars each year that are lost through outflows facilitated by trade misinvoicing of coffee, Uganda’s primary export commodity.

The authority says average annual tax losses from trade misinvoicing amounted to roughly 12.7 per cent of Uganda’s total government revenue over the years 2002-2011.

According to a Uganda Coffee Development Authority, coffee exports amounted to US$472 million in the 2018/2019 financial year, up from US$315 million in 2016/2017.

US$3.2 billion lost

According to Global Financial Integrity (GFI), between 2002 and 2011, cumulative trade misinvoicing totalled US$8.84 billion in Uganda.

Around 18 per cent of coffee exports between 2006 and 2015 were under-invoiced according to GFI, which estimates that in that period Uganda lost about US$3.2 billion in revenue due from coffee exports.

Categories: Trade Based Financial crimes News