Research · Fiscal Intelligence and Reform Lab · Project 2 · verified 28 Oct 2026
The dispatch book
What happened to 36 recommendations about Uganda's tax system
Every year, someone recommends a change to how Uganda taxes. The World Bank, the IMF, researchers, the government's own strategy. We traced 36 of them, from 8 authors, the way a government office tracks a file: a stamp at every desk it reaches, each stamp a dated document.
36
files sent: specific recommendations, each quoted with its page
30
never stamped after “sent”: no public evidence of any action
6
became law, 2 of them before they were recommended
0
shown to be implemented, or to have worked
Select any folder to open it here.
Silence is not progress. Most of these files never left the tray.
The tray clock
18,060
days the 30 unstamped files have waited, together
1,560,384,000 seconds, and every second that passes adds 30 more
About 49.4 years of waiting, counted from the date each recommendation was published to today. The oldest file has waited since 1 Nov 2016.
§1 · The book
30 of 36 files stop at “sent”
One row per recommendation. Seven desks, from sent to evaluated. A stamp means a dated public document shows that step; hover it to see the document. An empty box means we found none. Regroup the book to see where the silence gathers.
Welcome. The book was last checked on 28 Oct 2026; the next check is The FY2027/28 Budget Speech (30 Jun 2027). Come back after it: any file that has moved will carry a new ribbon.
§2 · The journey
Send all 36 files
Each file leaves its author for the institution with the power to act, and travels as far as the evidence goes. Watch where they stop.
The numbers
| Files sent | 36 |
| Stopped in the tray (no public evidence) | 30 |
| Reached law | 6 |
| Reached done or evaluated | 0 |
§3 · What a stamp means
A document with a date, nothing less
Take file 001. The World Bank recommended raising the income tax threshold to UGX 4.02 million a year. That is the sent stamp: the document, with its date. The Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2026 set exactly that threshold: the law stamp, dated the day the President signed it.
- No stamp without a dated document of that step.
- No stamp beyond “sent” without the institution's legal power, checked in the Act.
- No “evaluated” without a stated method.
- “Became law after” is not “became law because of”: that link stays pencilled.
File 001 · from World Bank · to MoFPED and Parliament
Raise the annual PIT tax-free threshold to UGX 4.02 million.
324days from recommendation to lawIncome Tax (Amendment) Act 2026, signed 20 Aug 2026
Evidence slip
Practice desk
The documents below are examples, not real documents
Try to move file 020, “Third-party information integration (banks, insurers)”, along. Drag a document onto a desk, or select it and then select the desk. Only a document of that step earns the stamp.
Pick up a document.
The real file 020 has no stamp after Sent. See what it needs.
§4 · Whose advice
Who is heard
By author: how many recommendations became law, and how many have no public trace. The government's own strategy moved furthest; none of the IMF's eight moved at all.
■ became law · ▨ no public evidence of action
The numbers
| MoFPED | 3 of 15 became law |
| IMF | 0 of 8 became law |
| UNU-WIDER | 1 of 5 became law |
| BMJ Open | 1 of 2 became law |
| International Growth Centre | 0 of 2 became law |
| World Bank | 1 of 2 became law |
| Center for Global Development | 0 of 1 became law |
| URA Board Chairman | 0 of 1 became law |
§5 · How long
From recommendation to law
For the six that became law: a dot where the recommendation was published, an arrow to the day the Act was signed. Two arrows point backwards: the law came first, so it cannot be a response.
The numbers
| File 001 | 2025-09-30 → 2026-08-20 | 324 days |
| File 011 | 2026-05-01 → 2026-08-20 | 111 days |
| File 013 | 2026-05-01 → 2025-06-30 | -305 days |
| File 018 | 2026-05-01 → 2026-08-20 | 111 days |
| File 026 | 2025-12-01 → 2025-06-30 | -154 days |
| File 031 | 2019-03-01 → 2025-06-30 | 2313 days |
The government's own items took 111 days. The World Bank's took 324. The cigarette research took more than six years.
§6 · Against the grain
When the law went the other way
Two IMF recommendations were followed by laws pointing the opposite direction. The files stay open, because no document rejects them; the contrary law is clipped to the file.
File 003 · IMF recommended
“Apply VAT to fuel products (with offsetting reductions in excises expected to produce net revenue gains).”
section 13, tax policy priorities under 'Reinvigorate implementation of DRMS-2'
Excise duty on petrol raised to UGX 1,750 and on diesel to UGX 1,430 per litre
Excise Duty (Amendment) Act 2026, signed 20 Aug 2026
File 005 · IMF recommended
“Eliminate tax holidays in favor of expenditure-based incentives.”
section 13, tax policy priorities
Income tax exemption for large hotel and tourism developments
Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2026, signed 20 Aug 2026
Three-year income tax exemption for start-ups founded by citizens
Income Tax (Amendment) Act 2025, signed 30 Jun 2025
And the World Bank's income tax reform: the threshold that costs revenue became law; the 35% band that would have paid for it did not.
§7 · What we cannot see
The desks no file has reached
- Outcomes. No record has a measured result with a baseline. A law is an output, not proof that anything changed.
- The Auditor General's follow-ups of past recommendations were not found in this pass.
- Exemption reports. The PFM Act 2015 s.77 requires the Minister to report every tax exemption to Parliament each quarter. Whether they are published is the next evidence to find.
- Private progress. “No public evidence” is not “nothing happened”. A document can move any file forward.
- 30 Jun 2027The FY2027/28 Budget Speech: which open files it takes up
- 30 Sep 2027The 2027 amendment Acts: matched files move to Law, with the Act
- Each quarterWhether the s.77 exemption reports appear (file 024)
§8 · Every file
The register
36 of 36 files
Method and sources
A recommendation is a specific action proposed in a published document we opened, quoted with its page and credited to its author. A status beyond “sent” needs a dated document of that step and a verified legal power for the institution (URA Act s.3; PFM Act 2015 s.8): the rules of the Lab's validator, enforced in the page's own code and tested. Where a recommendation became law, the file links to the Act in the Uganda Tax Amendment Register. “Became law after it was recommended” never means “because of it”. Nothing here implies that URA, MoFPED or any author uses or endorses this tracker.