Production at the East African Breweries Limited plant in Nairobi/FILE Kenya Revenue Authority is confident that it will manage its Sh1.8 trillion collection target for the financial year 2021-2020 on effective technology.
Speaking at the launch of this year’s Taxpayers’ Month, KRA chairman Francis Muthaura said the agency has in past years modernised its surveillance infrastructure, sealing revenue loss loopholes and increasing efficiency.
The optimism is on the back of recent achievement that saw the taxman surpass its revenue target for the first quarter of the financial year by Sh14.9 billion as businesses continue to defy Covid-19 drawbacks.
The taxman collected Sh476.7 billion between July – September against a target of Sh461.7 3 billion.
"The performance reflects a sustained revenue growth in the first three months of the year, with a performance rate of 103.2 per cent and growth of 30 per cent," KRA commissioner general Githii Mburu said.
The government tax agency played down recent court rulings that dealt a blow on its tax expectations.
High Court Judge declared sections of the Income Tax Act illegal, invalidating the introduction of Minimum Tax that imposed a one per cent levy on total sales from the beginning of January this year.
A day later, the same court suspended adjusted excise duty , a move blocking the agency to raise at least Sh400 billion from adjusted excise duty.
He said KRA will eye more revenue going forward through enhanced scanning and intelligence -led verification of import cargo.
It also plans to intensify fight against tax evasion to ensure that no revenue is lost.
To increase revenue collection and achieve the set target, the taxman says it will expand the tax base by tapping into new taxable income sources.”Through the target revenue collection, the Authority is expected to sustain an annual average growth of 16.9 per cent over the period in which nominal GDP growth is also projected to grow at 11.2 per cent,” Mburu said.Mburu highlighted some of projects implemented by the tax agency in recent times to ensure faster services to customers.He said that KRA’s journey to improved customer satisfaction is further pegged on availability across the 47 counties through KRA service centres, tax service offices (TSOs) and satellite stations.”At the apex of the customer service enhancement journey is KRA’s transformation from an Authority to Kenya Revenue Service (KRS),” Mburu said.While tax disputes are inevitable, KRA is keen to improve resolution of the disputes as an additional tool of enhancing […]