Uganda Sees Tax Revenue Jump 17% This Year With More Enforcement

Uganda’s tax revenue may climb 17 percent in 2012-13 on increased enforcement and a wider tax base, Allen Kagina, the Uganda Revenue Authority’s commissioner general, said.

Revenue in the 12 months through June 2013 may rise to 7.25 trillion shillings ($2.94 billion) from 6.21 trillion shillings in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, she told reporters today in Kampala, the capital.

Revenue is expected to finance at least three-quarters of the East African nation’s budget this year, Finance Minister Maria Kiwanuka said on June 14, with donors including the U.S., U.K., Denmark, the European Union funding the rest.

Uganda is set to become Africa’s newest oil producer when London-based Tullow Oil Plc (TLW) and its partners China National Offshore Oil Corp. and France’s Total SA (FP) begin pumping crude from the 2.5 billion-barrel discoveries.

The nation earned 72 billion shillings in 2011-12 from stamp duty, charged on property sale and purchase agreements, after Tullow sold two-thirds of its Ugandan oilfield interests to its partners for $2.9 billion, Kagina said. Tullow closed the sale in February, which gave each company a one-third stake in the three-block oil concession.

To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Ojambo in Kampala at fojambo@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net