Government wrong on levying Social Media Tax on Users
In a bid to increase the tax base, the Parliament passed a law to tax social media users. The Users will be charged 200 shillings which is about $0.0531per day for services such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp. That amounts to around $19 per year. It is also estimated that internet users in Uganda have increased from 16 .4 Million to 17.1 Million in 2017. This simply means available market for the digital economy and as such, the digital and telecom companies are earning revenues (that should be taxed) from subscriptions, advertisements among others. There is everything wrong with the social media tax. The tax contradicts the National Information and Communications Technology Policy 2014, which emphasizes that ICT relates to human rights and supports freedom of expression and the right of access to information, boosts trade, political, economic and social life of Ugandans. Here is why this tax is unpleasant. First, this kind of tax risks being double taxation as users have to