Case file EDA-2017-BEER
Excise duty on beer: a per-litre minimum added to the ad valorem rates
Highest rung reached: Reported yieldLaw: read in a statutory textRate structure · Revenue
1 point pending verification
- The beer wording before 1 July 2017, to draw the redline: Act 11 of 2017 replaced item 2 whole without quoting it.
Law
- Principal Act
- Excise Duty Act (Cap 336), enacted as Act 11 of 2014
- Amending Act
- Excise Duty (Amendment) Act 2017 (Act 11 of 2017) (verified)
- Provision, revised numbering (2023 revision)
- Sch. 2, item 3
- Provision, numbering before the revision
- Sch. 2, Part I, item 2
- Principal Act dates
- assent 2014-10-19; gazette 2014-10-24; commencement 2014-07-01; Uganda Gazette 61
- Amending Act in force from
- 1 July 2017 (assented 13 June 2017; gazetted 30 June 2017)
- Tax heads and taxpayers affected
- Excise duty. Brewers and beer drinkers.
- Status
- Legal: pending verification. Implementation: implemented.
The wording in force
as at 2017-07-01
2 Beer (a) Malt beer: 60% or shs. 1860 per litre, whichever is higher (b) Beer whose local raw material content excluding water is at least 75% by weight of its constituents: 30% or shs. 650/= per litre, whichever is higher (c) Beer produced from barley grown and malted in Uganda: 30% or shs.950 per litre, whichever is higher. Verified law: Wording or a date read in a statutory text, with the version and page named.[ACT-EDA-2017-11, PDF page 3, s. 2(c)]
Redline pending verification
In plain English
Interpretation: A reading of the evidence, by a named source or by this register. Beer moved towards a charge per litre rather than a share of price, so the tax no longer falls when brewers cut prices.
Reason
changing the excise duty regime for beer, and soda from advalorem to specific
Official forecast: What MoFPED or URA said a measure would raise, or why it was made, before the year began. [URA-ARR-1617, printed page 42, PDF page 45]
Policy objective as classified by the register: Revenue. Intended revenue direction: raise.
Revenue
- Rung 1
Observed change
Observed: A value or event as an official source records it, copied without calculation.- Collections for the tax heads affected are drawn on the story page, from URA's annual data books. Before and after is never presented as this amendment's effect.
- Rung 2
Official forecast
Official forecast: What MoFPED or URA said a measure would raise, or why it was made, before the year began.Missing. No official forecast for this measure was found in the budget documents or URA reports read. The budget speech and the Finance Bill memorandum for the year would settle it (MoFPED).
- Rung 3
Reported yield
Reported yield: What URA attributes to a measure after the year. An official attribution, not a causal estimate.- URA reports UGX 14.58 bn for FY2017/18.[URA-ARR-1718, printed page 22, PDF page 27]
- Rung 4
Static or modelled estimate
Modelled estimate: A mechanical or model calculation, with every assumption shown.Missing. No estimate made. A static estimate needs the taxable base before the change (volumes or values by product), which the register does not hold.
- Rung 5
Causal estimate
Causal estimate: An effect identified by a stated research design against a comparison group.Missing. No study with a defensible identification strategy was found for this amendment.
- Rung 6
Wider impact
Interpretation: A reading of the evidence, by a named source or by this register.Missing. No source read for the register describes effects on prices, compliance cost, investment or equity.
What is known, what is uncertain, and what would settle it
- Known: reported yield.
- Uncertain: official forecast, static or modelled estimate, causal estimate, wider impact; and 1 open point below.
Pathway
From the amendment to its wider consequences. Select a link to read what supports it. No money is drawn along the chain, because no flow along it is measured.
Verified: A source read for the register documents this link.
The provision is read in the ULII consolidated text.
- amendment: verified. The provision is read in the ULII consolidated text.
- mechanism: verified. A change in how the rate is set, not only its level.
- implementation: verified. URA reports performance for the measure, so it was applied.
- response: no evidence. No source read describes how taxpayers responded.
- outcome: verified. URA reports a yield. It is an official attribution, not a causal estimate.
- wider: no evidence. No source read measures wider effects. No evidence found is not evidence of no effect.
Consequences
Graded against ten criteria. No composite score: a reform that raises money can still be regressive or costly to comply with, and one that loses revenue can serve a legitimate aim. Revenue effectiveness is graded by a stated rule; the rest only where a source speaks to them.
What worked
No criterion graded effective on the evidence read.
What did not
No criterion graded ineffective or counterproductive on the evidence read.
Open or not evaluated
Revenue effectiveness
No pair of official forecast and reported yield in shillings.(graded by rule)
Not evaluated
Legal clarity and certainty
No source read for the register speaks to this criterion.
Not evaluated
Administrative feasibility
No source read for the register speaks to this criterion.
Not evaluated
Compliance cost
No source read for the register speaks to this criterion.
Not evaluated
Efficiency
No source read for the register speaks to this criterion.
Not evaluated
Investment and competitiveness
No source read for the register speaks to this criterion.
Not evaluated
Vertical and horizontal equity
No source read for the register speaks to this criterion.
Not evaluated
Distributional effect
No source read for the register speaks to this criterion.
Not evaluated
Implementation quality
No source read for the register speaks to this criterion.
Not evaluated
Unintended consequences
URA reports that domestic beer sales grew by only 10.9 percent in FY2017/18, against 22.5 percent the year before, and blames imported substitutes. It does not say whether the move to a specific rate played a part, and the register holds nothing that would separate the two.[URA-ARR-1718, printed page 10, PDF page 15]
Inconclusive
Afterlife
No Tax Appeals Tribunal or court decision on this provision is on record yet. That is not evidence that none exists.
Pending verification
- The beer wording before 1 July 2017, to draw the redline: Act 11 of 2017 replaced item 2 whole without quoting it.
Sources
URA-ARR-1617
Annual Revenue Report FY 2016/17
Uganda Revenue Authority. 2017. Covers FY2016/17, with the FY2017/18 outlook.
Desktop/Personal/URA DATA BOOKS AND REVENUE REPORTS/Annual Revenue Report FY 2016-17.pdf
Status: verified. Pages confirmed for this record in the source audit: 45 (PDF).
The FY2017/18 outlook (PDF page 45, printed page 42) names the policy measures and their expected yield. No measure-level performance table was found in this report.
URA-ARR-1718
Annual Revenue Report FY 2017/18
Uganda Revenue Authority. 2018. Covers FY2017/18.
Desktop/Personal/URA DATA BOOKS AND REVENUE REPORTS/Annual Revenue Report FY 2017-18.pdf
Status: verified. Pages confirmed for this record in the source audit: 27 (PDF).
Table 9 read from the page image (PDF page 27, printed page 22).
ACT-EDA-2017-11
Excise Duty (Amendment) Act, 2017 (Act 11 of 2017)
Parliament of Uganda, published by the Uganda Printing and Publishing Corporation. 2017-06-30. Covers Assented 13 June 2017; in force 1 July 2017.
Desktop/Tax legislation Amendment Acts/Excise Duty (Amendment) Act, 2017.pdf
Status: verified. Pages confirmed for this record in the source audit: 3 (PDF).
Acts Supplement No. 7 to the Uganda Gazette No. 37, Volume CX, dated 30 June 2017. Read from the text layer of the copy supplied by the author (4 pages).
Corrections to this record
- 2026-10-21 Title corrected to say the 2017 change added a per-litre minimum to the ad valorem rates. Act 11 of 2017 sets each beer rate as a percentage or a sum per litre, whichever is higher; it did not replace the percentage. Previously: Excise duty regime for beer changed from ad valorem to specific.