About
Secure research data lab in Uganda

The Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) and UNU-WIDER have established a secure research lab in the premises of URA. In the secure research lab the collated, quality-assured, and anonymised administrative tax data is available for external researchers by request. The lab was launched in 2022.

Accessing the URA tax administrative data

The URA tax administrative data can only be accessed in the secure research lab at the URA offices in Kampala, Uganda. Researchers are able to apply for data access through separate Requests for Research Proposals.

The URA tax administrative data has already been used in several research papers.

Data

The secure research lab contains anonymized administrative tax data listed below:

• The URA firm panel covering corporate income tax returns and firm registration data at business level for 2013–2022. The earlier version of the firm panel covering 2013-2020 is described in a WIDER Technical Note.
• The URA trade data covering import and export declarations at transaction level for 2013–2022. The trade data is described in a WIDER Technical Note.
• The URA PAYE data covering employee's wages and other employment incomes which are withheld by the employer for 2013–2022. The PAYE data is described in a WIDER Technical Note.

The other datasets (VAT, presumptive tax and comprehensive taxpayer register) will be made available towards the end of 2024. The value-added tax panel will consist of value-added tax returns at a monthly level. The presumptive tax panel will include presumptive tax returns at business and annual level. Detailed information regarding the new datasets will be published on this page later in 2024.

The available statistical softwares for using the data are Stata and R.