GOVERNMENT TO IMPOSE 30% TAX ON SACCOS; MINISTER BAHATI

By Okoodi Deo
www.mknewslink.com
In Kabale
State minister for planning Bahati David has emphasized that the government is committed to taxing 30% of any amount of money in net profit registered by a single SACCO in the country.
The minister noted that the money will contribute to the country’s revenue growth, but said that the proposed cooperative tax will not affect small SACCO’s which are trying to grow and have not yet started making profit.
The minister was speaking to Journalists in Kabale shortly after closing a one week entrepreneurs training organized by enterprise Uganda.
SACCO operators have expressed fear that once the income tax exemption awarded to them in July 2017 is reversed, their financial systems that are playing vital role among rural people who cannot access financial services from the formal sector will get disrupted and this shall ultimately become a recipe for SACCO failures in the country.
The operators said that SACCOs contribute to the government’s tax revenue through operational licenses, pay as you earn and local service tax from employees adding that subjecting them to income tax will force members to stop buying more shares.
Charles Ochichi the executive director Enterprise Uganda said that government should rather focus on increasing SACCO membership by establishing more SACCO’s in villages and tax the people instead of taxing them.

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