Officials from the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) are reportedly investigating former Bank of Uganda (BoU) Ex Director for Supervision Justine Bagyenda, over allegations of evading taxes amounting to billions of shillings.
A non-compliance report from URA indicate that her tax liabilities could amount to Shs 7 billion.
“The taxpayer owns a number of properties in several areas throughout the country of which a sample list is attached. Some of them are rental properties from which rental income may bot be declared to the tax authority,” reads part of the report.
“The person has significant amount of fixed deposits in both shillings and dollars of which the source of income is not just salary. I suspect this is undeclared income accumulated by the person over the years,” the report continues.
“As evidenced by the attached bank statements, there are several significant deposits made by the person in the availed bank statements which I suspect she didn’t declare to the tax authority.”
“Based on the information available, there is income approximating Uganda Shillings 18 Billion, which could result into a tax liability of Uganda Shillings 7,123.496,383.”
On Thursday, Diamond Trust Bank in a press release confirmed that details of Bagyenda’s bank account had been leaked to the public by some members of staff.
The bank apologised for embarrassment caused to Bagyenda and instituted a disciplinary hearing against the implicated staff.
Bagyenda, who was recently fired in a restructuring process at BoU but has since refused to hand over office, has allegedly been evading tax remittances for several years.
Bagyenda is said to be hiding over Shs19 billion in both shilling and dollar currencies in several commercial banks in Kampala, and owns over 20 properties worth hundreds of millions of shillings.
However, when URA compiled a list of top tax payers in Uganda in October on which several city business personalities appeared as the top income tax payers, Bagyenda’s name was nowhere to be seen.
After realizing that Bagyenda is extremely wealthy but her tax remittance schedule is greatly lacking, URA operatives have reportedly launched an audit investigation into her operations so as to ascertain why she has been evading taxes, with intent to make her cough all the taxes she hasn’t remitted for the period under review.
