Kuku Foods Uganda Limited, the company that runs KFC restaurants in the country, has issued a formal protest over what it describes as an excessively forceful tax operation by the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).
In a November 20, 2025 letter to the URA Commissioner General, the company outlines concerns about an enforcement action that it says breached legal procedure and contradicted the cooperative approach expected in tax administration.
Kuku Foods says URA officers, accompanied by armed security personnel, entered its Kampala headquarters on November 19, 2025, remaining in the building from early morning until nearly midnight. During this time, they allegedly extracted electronic data from company devices “without prior notice and under armed supervision.”
“The presence of armed officers in a corporate workplace during ordinary business hours caused significant alarm among our staff and created an atmosphere entirely incompatible with the cooperative and transparent relationship we have consistently sought to maintain with URA,”
the company wrote, adding that the operation was “exceptional in character, disproportionate in execution and wholly inconsistent with the standards expected in the lawful administration of tax matters.”
While acknowledging that Section 48 of the Tax Procedures Code Act grants the URA authority to access premises and review records, Kuku Foods stresses that these powers must be exercised in accordance with a structured process.
The company points out that Section 49(1) requires the tax authority to issue a written notice when seeking information — a step it says URA skipped entirely.
“If no such notice was served, it is difficult to understand how the deployment of soldiers and armed personnel to our office could be regarded as proportionate or procedurally justified. Any information URA required could have been provided promptly and lawfully upon proper request,”
the letter states.
Beyond the conduct of the raid itself, Kuku Foods is also contesting URA’s decision to reopen a tax audit for the period July 2019 to February 2022, arguing that the interval had already been examined, closed, and settled.
The company notes that Ugandan tax law only permits reopening finalised audits under limited circumstances — such as fraud or intentional misrepresentation — and says URA has not cited any such grounds.
“What was expected to be a structured administrative engagement instead unfolded as an enforcement operation against a taxpayer that has consistently demonstrated full compliance… It mirrored a security raid,” the company wrote, describing officers searching desks, monitoring staff and remaining on the premises until 11 p.m.
Kuku Foods also raises data privacy concerns, saying the URA team accessed devices and copied information without explaining how the data would be stored, safeguarded or used — a gap the company says could expose it to violations of Uganda’s data protection laws.
“As a multinational custodian of sensitive customer, employee, financial and operational information, we are legally required to ensure that all data is processed strictly within the confines of lawful purpose, necessity, minimality and secure handling,”
the company said, expressing concern that URA’s approach could compromise data integrity and chain-of-custody protections.
In the letter, the KFC operator demands that URA justify the reopening of previously concluded audit years and insists that any tax review be limited to the period beginning March 2022, which has not been audited.
“The consequences of reopening an audit without lawful basis extend far beyond this single engagement. It undermines the stability and reliability of URA’s administrative decisions,”
the company warns.
Kuku Foods also requests written assurance that future URA engagements will adhere to established legal procedures.
“We remain fully committed to lawful cooperation and constructive engagement… however, this commitment should not be interpreted as acquiescence to processes that fall outside the limits of the law or that place our operations and compliance obligations at risk,” Kuku Foods says.
“Unless there is immediate remediation and written assurance… we shall take all steps necessary to safeguard our rights. We therefore urge urgent intervention to restore procedural discipline, administrative coherence and adherence to the rule of law.”
