Africa-Press – Uganda. A receipt is evidence enough for a tax authority to ascertain the price of an item and subsequent assessment of tax, the Tax Appeals Tribunal (TAT) has ruled.
In a ruling delivered by Dr Asa Mugenyi, the chairman of the Tax Appeals Tribune, Dr Stephen Akabway and Mr Siraji Ali, both members of the Tribune, it was concluded that a receipt, which shows details of payment is conclusive evidence to determine what is contained in a purchase order and invoice.
The ruling resulted from a dispute between Airtel and Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) in which the telecom had objected to a decision of additional income tax assessment amounting to more than Shs1b on imported telecommunication equipment.
Documents before the Tribunal indicate that Airtel had on October 2018 imported telecommunication equipment after which URA conducted a spot audit of the telecom’s warehouse with focus on the value of the imported equipment.
The Tribunal heard that after the audit, URA issued a tax assessment based on comparison with identical equipment that had been imported by MTN.
This was after URA had failed to obtain key pricing details from Airtel, which would have been used for the assessment.
However, Airtel objected to the assessment, on grounds that URA had made an assumptive assessment, which was in itself was not reflective of the price of the equipment.
But the Tribunal ruled that in the absence of invoices, purchase orders or procurement procedures, Airtel should provide a receipt was evidence to inform the assessment.
“In order to prove that it [Airtel] paid $1,349.78 for the Broadband Processing Board Model N2 equipment, all the applicant [Airtel] is required to do, is tender a genuine receipt acknowledging the payment to ZTE,” the Tribunal ruled, wondering why Airtel was reluctant to tender details of the price of the equipment.
Therefore, the Tribunal noted, providing price data to a tax authority cannot be shielded by the veil of confidentiality given that URA has the mandate to levy and collect taxes.
The Tribunal in its ruling directed URA to take the equipment of both Airtel and MTN for analysis to ascertain whether they are technically identical and are of the same quality.
