ANOTHER FIRST BY KRA.

After the success witnessed from the Integrated Customs Management Systems in July 2019, there seems to be no stopping for The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).

In an effort to reduce the cost of compliance, curb tax revenue leakage and increasing the overall tax base, KRA has integrated tax and statutory deductions by employers which will now be administered under one platform. The electronic payment system, expected to be fully implemented by January 2020, brings together KRA's iTax, NSSF’s online systems, and NHIF payments.

The taxman is also exploiting information held by other government bodies including KPLC, NTSA, commercial banks and property registries in the harmonisation of filled returns.

By employing the data-driven compliance approach, KRA is being both cautious and real in its systems and employing data held by 3rd parties will go a long way in roping in evaders.

The Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC), for instance, gives details of landlords with properties and receiving income but don't declare. Many times taxpayers complain that what KRA sends them as assessed tax is higher than what they anticipate. With 3rd party data to back this up, such reconciliations will become easy for both taxpayers and the taxman.

The KRA has, in recent times, enjoyed gains of employing of technology in their operations including implementation of the Integrated Customs Management Systems, integrated cargo scanning solutions, regional electronic cargo tracking system to reduce cargo diversion and uptake of iTax system that has increased tax compliance.

The integration being from both within the government and the private sector, such data received should be purely used for tax analysis as per the Data Protection Bill that was recently signed into law by the President.

It is a great development towards having unified systems for government services.