Case file EDA-2018-COOKOIL
Excise duty of UGX 200 per litre on cooking oil
Highest rung reached: Reported yieldLaw: read in a statutory textNew tax · Widen the base
Law
- Principal Act
- Excise Duty Act (Cap 336), enacted as Act 11 of 2014
- Amending Act
- Excise Duty (Amendment) Act 2018 (Act 9 of 2018) (verified)
- Provision, revised numbering (2023 revision)
- Sch. 2, item 18
- Provision, numbering before the revision
- Sch. 2, Part I, item 18
- 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 2018 (assented 21 June 2018; gazetted 29 June 2018)
- Tax heads and taxpayers affected
- Excise duty. Cooking oil manufacturers, importers and households.
- Status
- Legal: in force. Implementation: implemented.
| Section A: The law | |
|---|---|
| Amending Act | Excise Duty (Amendment) Act 2018 (Act 9 of 2018) |
| In force from | 1 July 2018 |
| Assent | 21 June 2018 |
| Section B: What the law said before | |
| The wording before and after is set out in the redline below. | |
| *** END OF CHANGE SLIP *** | |
The redline
as at 2018-06-30
Not in the Act before this amendment: the amending Act inserted the provision.[ACT-EDA-2018-9, PDF page 8, s. 6(j)]
as at 2018-07-01
Inserted: Cooking oil: Ushs 200 per litre;Verified law: Wording or a date read in a statutory text, with the version and page named.[ACT-EDA-2018-9, PDF page 8, s. 6(j)]
Act 9 of 2018 inserted the item.
In plain English
Interpretation: A reading of the evidence, by a named source or by this register. Cooking oil was brought into excise at a fixed amount per litre. Collections far exceeded what the budget expected.
Reason
Excise duty of Shs. 200 per litre of cooking oil to widen the tax base.
Official forecast: What MoFPED or URA said a measure would raise, or why it was made, before the year began. [MOF-CG-1819, printed page 8, PDF page 11]
Policy objective as classified by the register: Widen the base. 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.- MoFPED: UGX 3 bn expected in FY2018/19 (Excise duty of UGX 200 per litre of cooking oil).[MOF-CG-1819, printed page 8, PDF page 11]
- URA: UGX 3 bn expected in FY2018/19 (Excise duty of UGX 200 per litre of cooking oil).[URA-ARR-1819, printed page 18, PDF page 24, Figure 15]
- 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 39.84 bn for FY2018/19, 1,328 percent of the forecast (computed). URA printed 1219.57 percent, which does not match its own figures.[URA-ARR-1819, printed page 18, PDF page 24, Figure 15]
- 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.
Inconsistencies in the official figures
- URA's text on PDF page 37 gives 1,219.57 percent; 39.84 over 3.00 is about 1,328 percent.
What is known, what is uncertain, and what would settle it
- Known: official forecast, reported yield.
- Uncertain: static or modelled estimate, causal estimate, wider impact.
- Would settle it: Request to the Clerk to Parliament for certified copies of the Excise Duty, Income Tax, Value Added Tax, Stamp Duty and Tax Procedures Code (Amendment) Acts of 2015 to 2025, with their dates of assent and Gazette notice numbers. Held by Uganda Printing and Publishing Corporation (Uganda Gazette); Parliament of Uganda Library; ULII.
- Would settle it: Request to UBOS for item-level CPI prices for the affected goods from FY2014/15 to FY2024/25. Held by Uganda Bureau of Statistics (CPI micro-prices, Uganda National Household Survey).
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 new charge on a base not taxed before.
- 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
Revenue effectiveness
Reported yield over MoFPED's forecast for FY2018/19: 1,328.0 percent.(graded by rule)
Effective
What did not
No criterion graded ineffective or counterproductive on the evidence read.
Open or not evaluated
Legal clarity and certainty
No source read for the register speaks to this criterion.
Not evaluated
Administrative feasibility
URA booked about thirteen times the forecast in the first year, which says more about the forecast than the collection. From February 2022 producers and importers had to affix digital tax stamps, bringing the charge under stamp control; the register holds no evidence on compliance before the stamps.[URA-ARR-2223, printed page 51, PDF page 58]
Inconclusive
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
No source read for the register speaks to this criterion.
Not evaluated
Afterlife
Linked records
- Tax stamps: digital tax stamps on prescribed goods implements this record. Digital tax stamps were extended to cooking oil from 1 February 2022. (verified)[URA-ARR-2223, printed page 51, PDF page 58]
Later changes, cases and practice
- Observed: A value or event as an official source records it, copied without calculation.Cooking oil producers and importers were required to affix digital tax stamps from 1 February 2022.[URA-ARR-2223, printed page 51, PDF page 58]
No Tax Appeals Tribunal or court decision on this provision is on record yet. That is not evidence that none exists.
Sources
MOF-CG-1819
Know Your Budget 2018: A Citizen's Guide to the Budget of FY 2018/19
Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development. 2018-06. Covers FY2018/19.
Status: verified. Pages confirmed for this record in the source audit: 11 (PDF).
Fetched online and read page images of PDF pages 10 and 11 (printed pages 7 and 8). It summarises the budget speech; the speech itself was not read.
URA-ARR-1819
Annual Revenue Report FY 2018/19
Uganda Revenue Authority. 2019. Covers FY2018/19.
Desktop/Personal/URA DATA BOOKS AND REVENUE REPORTS/Annual Revenue Report FY 2018-19.pdf
Status: verified. Pages confirmed for this record in the source audit: 24 (PDF).
Figure 15 (PDF page 24, printed 18), Table 10 (PDF page 37, printed 31) and Table 11 (PDF page 38, printed 32) read from page images. The measure-level annex (A3) is an embedded Word file that is not in the PDF.
REPO-REVENUE
Revenue collections and targets by tax head (data/raw/Revenue_by_TaxHead.json)
Uganda Revenue Authority, Annual Data Books FY2019/20 and FY2024/25, as compiled in this repository. 2026. Covers FY2015/16 to FY2024/25.
data/raw/Revenue_by_TaxHead.json
Status: verified. No page of this source is confirmed for this record by the audit; it is cited for context.
Existing repository extract, reused, not copied.
ULII-EDA-2025
Excise Duty Act (Chapter 336), version of 1 July 2025
Uganda Legal Information Institute (ULII) and Laws.Africa, from the Law Reform Commission revision. 2025-07-01. Covers Text in force from 1 July 2025; revised and consolidated as at 31 December 2023, later amendments applied by Laws.Africa.
Desktop/Personal/Tax Legislation and URA Returns/Excise Duty Act Cap 336.pdf
Status: verified. Pages confirmed for this record in the source audit: 17 (PDF).
Read in full with pdftotext. Lists amending Acts on PDF page 3.
URA-ARR-2223
Annual Revenue Report FY 2022/23
Uganda Revenue Authority. 2023. Covers FY2022/23.
Desktop/Personal/URA DATA BOOKS AND REVENUE REPORTS/Annual Revenue Report FY 2022-23.pdf
Status: verified. Pages confirmed for this record in the source audit: 58 (PDF).
Table 22 (PDF page 62, printed 55) and the Digital Tax Solution section (PDF page 58, printed 51) read.
ACT-EDA-2018-9
Excise Duty (Amendment) Act, 2018 (Act 9 of 2018)
Parliament of Uganda, published by the Uganda Printing and Publishing Corporation. 2018-06-29. Covers Assented 21 June 2018; in force 1 July 2018.
Desktop/Tax legislation Amendment Acts/Excise Duty (Amendment) Act, 2018.pdf
Status: verified. Pages confirmed for this record in the source audit: 8 (PDF).
Acts Supplement No. 2 to the Uganda Gazette No. 33, Volume CXI, dated 29 June 2018. Read in full from the text layer of the copy supplied by the author (9 pages).