The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) announced during the Taxpayers’ Day Celebrations that it collected KSh 10 billion from crypto dealers in the financial year ended June,
- The authority is planning to revamp its taxation framework for digital assets to capture KSh 60 billion in taxes from the Cryptocurrency sector this financial year.
- In the Finance Act 2023 (The one in operation), the government introduced a 3% tax on the transfer and exchange of digital assets like Cryptocurrency.
- The taxman still has a long way to go in netting more than 700,000 crypto traders in Kenya what they consider as ‘a fair share’ due to loopholes in regulation and restrictions from the banking sector.
“We have agreed with out commissioner-general, I talked even to the Governor of Central Bank, the deputy governor so that we can have a joint technical committee to explore all the means to reach these Cryptocurrency dealers,” KRA chairman Anthony Mwaura said.
Cryptocurrency remains legally taxable, according to Section 3 of the Income Tax Act, despite being unregulated by key financial authorities like the CBK and the Capital Markets Authority (CMA). Assets like Bitcoin are gaining a foothold globally as its prices continue outpacing other trading investments (currently 1 bitcoin is KSh 9.8 million).
KRA plans to integrate various Cryptocurrency exchanges with the systems to track transaction values anf dates and ensure traders in the sector remit their taxes. The authority estimates that the crypto market in Kenya is valued at KSh 2.4 trillion yearly, a potential tax base that would increase total revenues by 2.4%.
