Airtel Uganda and the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) have today opened a new chapter of easing tax payments in Uganda. The partnership between these two brands relies on its mobile finance platform __Airtel money which can now be used to pay taxes directly to URA without necessarily visiting a nearby URA branch or bank.
As Airtel money continues to rise as the most popular head to head MTN Mobile Money alternative, its new URA integration means users won’t have to battle with overdue payments, but simply dial *185*4# to clear their URA taxes in time before any late payment penalties rise up.
During the partnership reveal between Airtel and URA publicized on the telco Facebook page, the Airtel Chief Commercial Officer Amit Kapur braced the new integration as one that will ship ease and convenience in tax payments by Airtel customers. This means every Airtel customer will only need an active TIN number in order to clear their URA dues without worrying about hailing a boda/taxi to the nearest branch/office.
Even when Over the Top (OTT) tax is still active in Uganda and is also payable via Airtel money, the new integration only caters for the high-end Tax Identification Number (TIN) URA taxes and not any other subscriber tariffs. So, the new Airtel Money-URA payments option accessible via *185*4# will only cater for businesses and pending tax payments leaving out the OTT craze.
Basically, the new payments solution by Airtel comes at a time when signs of its charges free payments portal dubbed as Airtel Money Pay show an official rollout this year with the same clearance mechanism as the popular MTN Momo Pay. So, the new URA integration clearly shows another layer of digital inclusion which will see analog services erased from existence in a fast pace timeline anytime 5G sets an initial step-in.