A group of concerned citizens, including lawyers and a journalist, has petitioned the Constitutional Court over the Over the Top (OTT) tax, controversially known as social media tax, which came into effect on July 1st.
The tax seeks to grant access to Over-The-Top (OTT) services, including social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram WhatsApp, Twitter among others, to only persons who have made daily, weekly or monthly tax payments to Ugandan Revenue Authority through their service providers.
The petitioners, Okiror Emmnanuel, Opio Daniel Bill, Baguma Moses, Silver Kayondo and Raymond Mujuni, want the court to rescind the decision on the infamous tax and "declare it as illegal, null and void".
They want the court to also issue an immediate order barring Uganda Revenue Authority from levying the tax.
In the petition, they claim that the tax was "passed with no public participation and hinders freedom of speech and innovation".
They maintain that the new social media tax will hinder economic growth and cause a negative impact on online media.
A section of Ugandans is using Virtual Private Networks (VPN) to access social media platform without paying the UGX200 daily tax.
The social media tax was part of the taxes which were approved by the government for the financial year 2018/19.
Meanwhile, the 1% tax levy on all total mobile money transactions and services is raising eyebrows among Ugandans as costs increase.
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