East African Business Week

KAMPALA UGANDA - Media houses are losing about 4% in income they are paying unnecessarily on the accreditation discount in different ways to advertising agencies.
This was pointed out during last week's breakfast meeting in Kampala that was initiated by BDO auditing firm  in partnership with Uganda Media Owners Association (UMOA), Uganda Advertising Association (UAA) and Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).
Mr. Robert Busuulwa, a partner with BDO emphasized the need to operate at a consistent approach to invoicing and Value Added Tax (VAT) calculation so as to ensure that media houses save money.
"We have undertaken the challenge to provide structure and self- governance to the media and advertising industries in the country so as to ensure that business is conducted according to the Uganda law, consistently and in the most efficient and transparent way possible,"Busuulwa said. There are different methods of calculating being applied across media houses even on straight forward media house, agency, and client invoicing processes.
UAA and UMOA consulted URA which agreed that media houses are paying unnecessary VAT as a consequence of the different calculating methods.
This therefore saw a Memorandum of Understanding issued last Friday between UMOA and UAA and rubberstamped by URA as a practice note for the industry which will be used by all members.
"We want to be very clear on this issue of invoicing between media houses and advertising agencies and that is why there was a need to sign this memorandum of understanding," Busuulwa added.