Case file EDA-2018-TELECOM12
Excise duty harmonised at 12% on telecommunication services
Highest rung reached: Official forecastLaw: read in a statutory textRate structure · Revenue
2 points pending verification
- A reported yield in shillings: URA gives only an achievement rate.
- The wording of item 13 before 1 July 2018, which Act 9 of 2018 replaced whole: the Act does not quote it.
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 13(a) and (d)
- Provision, numbering before the revision
- Sch. 2, Part I, item 13(a) and (d)
- 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. Telecommunications operators and their customers.
- Status
- Legal: in force. Implementation: implemented.
The wording in force
as at 2025-07-01
Airtime on mobile cellular, landlines and public pay phones: 12% of the fee charged Verified law: Wording or a date read in a statutory text, with the version and page named.[ULII-EDA-2025, printed page 14, PDF page 16, Schedule 2, item 13(a)]
Redline pending verification
In plain English
Interpretation: A reading of the evidence, by a named source or by this register. Airtime, value added and other telecommunication services were brought to one excise rate.
Reason
Rationalise excise related telecommunication services and enhance compliance
Interpretation: A reading of the evidence, by a named source or by this register. [MOF-CG-1819, printed page 7, PDF page 10]
Marked as interpretation: the source states this objective, but either does not tie it to this measure in so many words or is not the Ministry that proposed it.
Policy objective as classified by the register: Revenue. Intended revenue direction: raise.
Revenue
Amendment-level revenue contribution not reliably quantified.
- 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 30 bn expected in FY2018/19 (Excise duty harmonised at 12% on all telecommunication services).[MOF-CG-1819, printed page 8, PDF page 11]
- Rung 3
Reported yield
Reported yield: What URA attributes to a measure after the year. An official attribution, not a causal estimate.- URA prints an achievement rate of 635.04 percent for FY2018/19 but no figure in shillings.[URA-ARR-1819, printed page 31, PDF page 37]
- 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 reports only an achievement rate, against a target it does not print for this measure.
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; and 2 open points below.
- 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 URA under the Access to Information Act 2005 for the policy measures performance annexes for FY2015/16 to FY2024/25, including 'Policy measures report fy 201819'. Held by Uganda Revenue Authority, Research, Planning and Development Division.
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: hypothesised. URA reports only an achievement rate, without a figure.
- 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
No source read for the register speaks to this criterion.
Not evaluated
Afterlife
No Tax Appeals Tribunal or court decision on this provision is on record yet. That is not evidence that none exists.
Pending verification
- A reported yield in shillings: URA gives only an achievement rate.
- The wording of item 13 before 1 July 2018, which Act 9 of 2018 replaced whole: the Act does not quote it.
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: 10, 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: 37 (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.
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: 16 (PDF).
Read in full with pdftotext. Lists amending Acts on PDF page 3.
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. No page of this source is confirmed for this record by the audit; it is cited for context.
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).
Corrections to this record
- 2026-10-20 Stated reason reclassified from OFFICIAL FORECAST to INTERPRETATION. The Citizen's Guide (printed page 7) lists nine objectives for the year's measures without tying each objective to a measure. Matching this objective to this measure is the register's reading, not the Ministry's statement. Previously: OFFICIAL_FORECAST.