URA slaps singer Chameleone with Shs42m tax bill

A mixture of good and bad things always come singer Jose Chameleone’s way whenever he has an upcoming album launch concert. This year, ahead of his Tubonge East African concert, Chameleone made news after appearing with Speaker Rebecca Kadaga at Parliament on Monday. Chameleone met with Hon. Kadaga (pictured below) and signed an agreement to promote the Busoga Tourism Initiative as its ambassador. He also used the opportunity to invite Hon. Kadaga for his Tubonge concert that is tonight. “The speaker accepted my invite,” Chameleone told us.

However, a day later, on Tuesday, we received news that Uganda Revenue Authority was demanding over Shs42m from the singer. According to officials from the tax body, the money accrued as a result of the singer not presenting his monthly income as well as failure to remit the due taxes to the tax body for the past two years.

Chameleone, who was not happy with URA, told us that he visited their offices recently and that’s when he was informed about the Shs42m. “No one has ever told me that I am fined Shs200,000 every month when I don’t pay taxes or present my monthly income to URA. This is unfair, they should have educated people before piling up costs on us.”
Chameleone, however, told us that he cleared up to Shs 20m and promised to follow up the figures after his concert. Earlier in the week, tabloid reports had started spreading rumours that URA was set to block Chameleone’s conert later tonight, but the singer simply laughed off the allegations, “that is rubbish; I’m Jose Chameleone, I love and respect my country, and I want to see it grow.”

It should be noted that last year, URA made a swoop at Hotel Africana where singer Iryn Namubiru was set to hold her album launch concert and impounded her car, a Toyota Landcruiser, over tax arrears.