Uganda waives tax, penal tax and interest outstanding as at 30 June 2016

What changed in detail

Uganda’s Tax Procedures Code (Amendment) Act, 2026 (Bill No. 5 of 2026, tabled 1 April 2026) inserts a new section 47C into the Tax Procedures Code Act, Cap. 343: “Any tax including penal tax and interest owed by a taxpayer as at 30th June, 2016 and is outstanding as at the commencement of this Act, is waived.” The waiver reaches every tax type the Code covers, not just one — it turns on the debt existing as at that date and remaining unpaid when the Act came into force.

The same Bill separately reduces the minimum penalties for offences relating to tax stamps and electronic receipting/invoicing (EFRIS), and waives interest and penalty outstanding as at 30 June 2025 for taxpayers who pay the underlying principal tax by 30 June 2027. Parliament’s Committee on Finance, Planning and Economic Development reported on the Bill; EY’s post-enactment tax alert records presidential assent on 18 May 2026, with the penalty changes taking effect 1 July 2026.

What it means

This is a one-off write-off of a decade-old debt category, not an ongoing relief — the operative date, 30 June 2016, is fixed in the statute and does not move. Ugandan taxpayers carrying any tax, penal tax or interest balance from before that date should confirm their ledger reflects the waiver rather than continuing to accrue against it. The confidence on this record is medium: the Bill text and the committee report are both official and consistent, but the assent date and the 1 July 2026 effective date for the penalty provisions come from a secondary advisory summary, which the primary sources here do not themselves state.