On 1st July 2018, the Ministry of Finance announced a new entry to the national budget spicers league and that was OTT tax widely known as Social media tax __since its directly levied on major gossip platforms. The Move had been previously approved by Members of Parliament who voted in the right path of having platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, tune the overall URA income with atleast a 1% increase spike.
Well, the same Members of Parliament who approved OTT tax in Uganda earlier this week received alerts of exemption from the Internet affiliated Tax. As a matter of fact, Many MPs were glad to know that their iPads would finally have a taste of free OTT coupled with 5GB of free monthly Internet loaded on their MTN Numbers.
However, before the jubilation streak hit its highs, the Speaker came out to disown the policy with plans to have every MP pay for the tax and not rely on parliament to have it cleared on their behalf. More so, a section of Vote compliant MPs also switched sides to reject the offer that had invited parliamentary bids won by MTN Uganda as the better smiling telco to cater for the MPs.
Once the UGX 200bn Is Approved, Ugandan MPs will have free Monthly Data of 5GB valued at 30,000/= and Free OTT tax valued at 6,000/=
As the Mix up continues to rise with plans to renegotiate about the MP OTT benefits offer later this month. The fate of Parliamentary OTT tax may soon sink in the deeps of unpopularity depending on the public outcry of No OTT payments for MPs. However, since URA previously filed billions of income resulting from the 200/= 24hrs valid tax, then chances are that OTT tax may reign for a 2nd term in Uganda.
Now that MPs are still dragging sides on whether to clear their OTT bills coupled with free Monthly data to be used on the Parliament provided high-grade iPads. We expect to see the proposal filed by MTN Uganda go through without any media questioning once this month elapses. Nonetheless, with over UGX 200 billion allocated to this exercise, free OTT tax to MPs would show that Over the Top services can only be directly accessed by VIPs leaving the Netizens in a hide and seek game with VPNs dominating the square