Assessing Presumptive Tax Policy in Uganda

This online event will be organized to introduce the  results of an assessment of presumptive tax policy in Uganda. The seminar will cover effect estimates of Uganda's recent presumptive tax reform and recommendations for amending the tax regime in the future.

The 2020 presumptive tax reform in Uganda was implemented in response to several challenges in the previous regime, including high tax rates and regressivity. The new regime does lower the tax burden on small businesses but, as a result, also reduces tax revenue. In order to explore effective solutions to these challenges, UNU-WIDER, Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), Ugandan Ministry of Finance, Makerere University and Southern African Social Policy Research Insights (SASPRI) launched a research project on the topic, building on policy simulations with the UGAMOD microsimulation model.

In this seminar, the authors present the main findings of the assessment. The event will also offer participants an opportunity to ask questions and engage in a discussion with the researchers.

The audience of the event will include participants from academia (Makerere University), government organizations (URA, Ministry of Finance, National Planning Authority, Kampala Capital City Authority), non-governmental research organizations (SEATINI-U, Economic Policy Research Centre, International Growth Centre).

About UGAMOD

UNU-WIDER, the University of Essex in the UK, and SASPRI have embarked on a collaboration called SOUTHMOD, to promote tax-benefit microsimulation modelling in developing countries using the EUROMOD tax-benefit microsimulation software. 

As part of the SOUTHMOD collaboration a stand-alone tax-benefit microsimulation for Uganda, UGAMOD was built in collaboration with colleagues at the Uganda Revenue Authority and Makerere University. UGAMOD allows the user to analyse and compare the effects of different benefit policy scenarios on poverty, inequality, and government revenue. The model applies user-defined tax and benefit policy rules to micro-data on individuals and households and calculates the effects of these rules on household income.

UGAMOD is freely available for non-commercial research and analytical work. More information about the model, including how to obtain it, and supporting documentation is available here.

SOUTHMOD project is part of UNU-WIDER's research and capacity building programme on domestic revenue mobilization (DRM), funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation (Norad).