{"id":3163,"date":"2021-02-08T18:04:44","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T15:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techrafiki.com\/?p=3163"},"modified":"2021-07-13T07:38:48","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T04:38:48","slug":"why-ott-tax-should-be-scrapped","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techrafiki.com\/why-ott-tax-should-be-scrapped\/","title":{"rendered":"Why absurd OTT tax should be scrapped completely."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
The shutdown of the internet<\/span><\/a> on 13th<\/sup> January might as well have been the death of the OTT tax in Uganda. OTT tax has been labelled the \u201ccontroversial tax\u201d which is one of the many reasons why this OTT tax should be scrapped in Uganda. It was introduced in 2018<\/span><\/a> as many Ugandans woke up to a new reality where they had to pay an extra charge to access social media platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook as if the money spent on data wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2018, a spike in VPN downloads was recorded in Uganda, efforts by several Ugandans to dodge the tax. The government justified this new tax with need to widen the tax base to increase revenue in the country. In addition, the President claimed that the youth were spending so much time online and spreading wrong information hence the need to be regulated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also read: Simple ways on how to use Trello, a cool app that helps you organise all your tasks.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the new tax performed quite terribly with URA (Uganda Revenue Authority) collecting a mere Shs 49.5bn out of the<\/span> targeted Shs 284bn in 2019.<\/span><\/a> It actually cost the government more money to implement the tax than the revenue it received from it. More money was lost because of the ability of tech-savvy Ugandans to bypass the tax with access to WiFi and VPN. <\/p>\n\n\n\n UCC also reported a 30% decline in the number of internet users. That is a huge percentage for a country like Uganda where majority of the population still lacks access to internet connectivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More pressure came in 2020 from World Bank<\/span><\/a> advising the government that the OTT tax should be scrapped since it was a huge block to information that people needed to access about the ongoing pandemic. Most of this information was online which people could not access because of the economic crisis that made it difficult to afford even the cheapest of internet rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n