The advancement of technology and internet have transformed the way businesses operate, and ushered new trends in transactions.
However, according to Uganda Revenue Authotity (URA), this progression has also been misused by unscrupulous individuals as a mechanism to dodge taxes through vices like; document forgeries, invoice trading, missing traders, sales suppression, EFRIS system tampering, and code misclassification.
In light of the above, URA launched the digital intelligence networks to match the digital trends through tax audits and financial investigations.
Digital evidence presents unique elements that necessitate special initiatives to be considered when dealing with evidence.
The intangible nature of data obtained in electronic form is volatile and fragile, and the ease with which it can be created, altered, deleted or lost, all pose challenges to the integrity of digital evidence.
According to URA, Tax administration initiatives like EFRIS have been countered with copycat systems which affect its data.
They say Dubious persons opt for this illegal means with the aim of lessening the tax burden.
The tax body says it has achieved remarkable milestones in the area, making the operations of the tax crime fraudsters a glooming nightmare.
“Deleted, hidden and modified computer data (documents, emails, social media and internet activity) no longer offer a technical advantage to the fraudsters and tax evaders because the digital forensic tools applied in the lab can now recover and bring to light what was concealed to the human eye. The digital forensic tools deployed by URA can access data from numerous sources including; computers, mobile devices and cloud platforms of persons under investigation,” URA says.
They say under declaration, which was rampant in the gaming and betting business, created billions of undeclared revenue that was recovered by URA.
This, has been possible with the application of advanced tools for digital and mobile forensics.
Credit: URA Website