Report

Tax Amnesties in Africa: An Analysis of the Voluntary Disclosure Programme in Uganda

This paper examines the administration of tax amnesties in various jurisdictions around the world, including the United States, Australia, Canada, Kenya and South Africa. The paper makes a cost-benefit analysis of these and other tax amnesties – and from this analysis develops a model tax amnesty, whose features maximise the benefits of a tax amnesty while minimising the potential costs. The model tax amnesty: (1) is permanent, (2) is available only to taxpayers who make a voluntary disclosure, (3) relieves taxpayers of penalties, interest and the risk of prosecution, but treats intentional and unintentional non-compliance differently, (4) has clear reporting requirements for taxpayers, and (5) is communicated clearly to attract non-compliant taxpayers without appearing unfair to the compliant ones. The paper then focuses on the Ugandan tax amnesty introduced in July 2019 – a Voluntary Disclosure Programme (VDP). As at 7 November 2020, this initiative had raised USh16.8 billion (US$6.2 million) against a projection of USh45 billion (US$16.6 million). The paper examines the legal regime and administration of this VDP, scoring it against the model tax amnesty.