Automation and customs tax administration: Empirical evidence from Uganda

Automation is a topic that has soared in importance particularly on the efficiency of custom tax administration. This paper investigates the adoption of automation by Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), a semi-autonomous agency mandated with tax administration in Uganda. The adoption of automation in URA was aimed at achieving efficiency and increase revenue. The paper reports findings based on cross sectional approach to investigating URAʹs experiences with automation, efficiency and effective tax administration. The evidence suggests a positive correlation of automation and the cost of tax administration, automation and effectiveness of revenue collection while automation was negatively and significantly related with tax clearance time. The paper makes significant empirical contribution to analysing tax automation and administration cost, time efficiency and effectiveness of revenue collection. Some of the results are inconsistent with the notion that automation leads to efficiency in tax administration.