By Sylvia
Fort Portal City has reportedly registered a steady progress in increased taxes collected, following the introduction of the new mode of paying the local revenue tax known as integrated revenue administration system (IRAS).
According to the secretary finance Fort Portal city council, who doubles as the worker’s councilor in the Fort Portal city, council Prosper Businge, all local governments shifted to Integrated Revenue Administration System (IRAS).
He explained the corruption challenges they used to get during local revenue tax collection made the local governments opt for a better option and thus the introduction of IRAS.
This mode of tax collection he observed, has helped Fort Portal city to greatly improve on the local revenue collections compared to previous years.
About IRAS
IRAS is a web and mobile application platform that aids local government in collections of local revenue from registration, assessment, billing, payment sensitization of taxpayers and linking the citizens to municipalities and cities.
It was introduced in a bid to improve local revenue collection and management, in a move to fight corruption.
According Businge , previously, some of the team of technocrats from the revenue department used to directly go the field to collect tax from tax payers.
It is through this process, that some of the monies would be stolen through connivance between taxpayers and officials, leading to losses on the local government.
“In this system, there is no direct contact between a tax payer and the tax collector. The person is only allowed to pay the tax online after being given a PR pin” revealed Businge.
The finance Secretary, has said that during Covid,the city managed to collect 12Bn in 2021-2022 F\Y they collected 2.1Bn and by the close of this financial year, they expect to collect 2.2 Billion shillings.
