The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is spearheading an electronic payment system housing KRA’s itax, National Social Security Funds (NSSF) online systems, and National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) payments.
According to KRA, the unified payroll will curb tax revenue leakages and reduce the cost of compliance. In addition, the platform is one of KRA’s national integration and monitoring strategy meant to increase tax collection.
Also Read: KRA plans to monitor Mpesa and Online Remittances
Banks and Kenya Power
Besides NSSF and NHIF, KRA is also considering scrutinizing other government institutions such as Kenya Power, NTSA, and property registries. The data-driven compliance approach will enable KRA access data from third parties for accurate estimation of tax value and personal declarations.
In addition, earlier this month KRA said that the Tax Procedures Act compels third parties to share information including banks. On top of that, the agency’s intelligence and strategic operations unit has intensified investigations into financial records of wealthy individuals and companies.
The platform will be rolled out to the first batch of 90,500 employers and progress gradually until the integration of all employers by December.
In this case, KRA hopes to net an additional 3.06 million taxpayers raising the taxpayers base to seven million.
Yielding results
The efforts have born results as KRA has unearthed 56 billion from tax-payers denying the state its dues.
Since July, KRA has filed 152 tax evasion cases including brewery leaders Humphrey Kariuki and Tabitha Karanja. For instance, KRA is claiming Ksh36.52 billion from Kariuki while Karanja is accused of failing to remit Ksh14.4 billion.
Furthermore, KRA court summons indicates that the agency filed 26 tax evasion cases on July, 30 in August, and 38 in September.
Sports betting firms have not been spared with Sportpesa and Betin closing shop due to tough taxation requirements and licensing issues from KRA.
The top priority for the taxman during the Seventh Plan period (2018/19-2020/21) hopes to raise the revenue/GDP ratio from 18.3 percent in 2017/18 to 19.2 percent in 2020/21.
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