Director: Daniel C. Levy

Debate Over Tax Exemption

(Entry by Wycliffe Otieno)

PROPHE Summary:

For the original piece see Revenue Body Moves to Tax Universities. New Vision, 15 April 2008 by John Eremu and Bob Kisiki, Kampala http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/9/35/622482?highlight&q=Revenue%20Body%20Moves%20to%20Tax%20Universities

The report raises several questions on public policies on private institutions, public private partnerships in the provision of social services and the extent to which a private design of a non profit institution can have, or even claim, a public purpose.  Or, better still, what should be the public response to private claims of provision of a public good?  In revealing the punitive public taxation system that smothers private growth by placing obstacles in its wake (obstacles that the public institutions do not counter), the report clearly highlights the contradictions in public fiscal policy with regard to the provision of a public good.  But how much impact the public taxation regime will have in driving private institutions out of business, as claimed by private providers, is debatable.  Though a public fiscal policy issue, the report highlights both the depth and the intricacies in public-private dynamics; in fact, it intensifies debate on the subject.