In partnership with organizations like the URA, Debate Society Uganda, ActionAid, Oxfam and tax justice Uganda, SEATINI Uganda organized the inter-university debate competition on tax justice. This attracted over 24teams from different universities across the country.
The debate that started on 28th September and concluded on 30th September with preliminary rounds taking place virtually on discord, where four teams were broken to semifinals, and physically participation in the semi finals and grand finale held at Golf Course Hotel where Kyambogo University, Gulu University, Mbarara University of Science and Technology and Makerere University were competing against each other.
The highlights from the debate includes the motion on supporting a tax-free internet access. Young people acknowledged the fact that despite other challenges like poverty, inaccessibility, prices of data purchase, the use of internet has risen overtime from different young persons and companies. The Jumia for example does sales and marketing through the internet and earns a lot of profits which makes it a fertile ground for taxing the internet. However, other young people argued that sites like the government websites, educational sites should be tax free/zero rated so that access to information and continuity of learning is encouraged.
The issue of paying unfair and unjust taxes was greatly refuted by the young people pointing out the recent plan to tax NSSF savings as a crooked idea. Young people also questioned the lack of information on tax systems and URA activities. Makerere University team won the finals of the debate against the team from Mbarara University.
Mrs. Grace R. Namugambe, the program officer financing for development and tax justice acknowledged the efforts put across by young people to look for tax related information and also involve themselves in the activities. The youth voices shall be forwarded to the relevant stake holders like URA, UIA and the parliament of Uganda.
By Daniel Olara
