Only taxpayers who file their taxes before will now be concealed by the Kenyan Revenue Authority, KRA.
Kenya-Tax Filing for the first time through the Kenyan Revenue Authority (KRA) since the introduction of filing tax returns by the June 30th deadline of every year will not be revealing the number of taxpayers who follow this exercise.
In a previous time, the KRA had launched a series of campaigns instructing taxpayers to file returns on time to avoid the consequences of non-compliance.
KRA’s Assistant Manager, Media Relations Hannah Gakuo recently revealed the tax body’s intentions to conceal the name of taxpayers who file their returns before the deadline.
The institution, however, revealed that last year, over 5.5 million taxpayers complied with this directive, while 4.4 million filed returns by June 30 deadline the year before.
Although the number of taxpayers registered on iTax has largely increased over the past few years, rising from 3.6million in 2019 to a 4.4million in 2020 and 2021’s 5.5million, the KRA still laments that some 600,000 of the 6.1 million taxpayers on iTax have refused to file.
This increase, however, depicts positive progress in tax compliance which could lead to significant economic growth.
Unlike in the previous years, the KRA revealed that the Tax Service Offices this year didn’t experience long queues during the last days of filing.
This directive and several recovery measures by the KRA helped to increase revenue collection by a fifth in the year to June 2022.
Kenya-Tax filing: 2.87 million Kenyans file returns ahead of June 30 deadline
According to recent data by the KRA, more than 2.87 million taxpayers had filed returns by June 7, ahead of the June 30 deadline.
However, the data revealed that the compliant 41% is less compared with 3.07million taxpayers who filed within the same period last year.
The KRA has extended working hours at the physical and online filling points as an increase in daily filings is expected with the deadline approaching.
The service centers now operate on weekends as well, all part of the efforts to eliminate tax evasion and increase collection.
The tax body generated nearly Sh1.46 trillion between July 2021 and April 2022, which is higher compared to the Sh1.42 trillion target on a prorated target and the tax receipts issued within the 10 months were 22.31% higher compared to the Sh1.19 trillion it generated in a similar period in the year before.
