KRA woo Counties to boost tax compliance

Caption: KRA, Commissioner Domestic Taxes, Alice Owour (left) and KRA Commissioner General/CEO John Njiraini at a past event.

Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has opened negotiations with County governments in an effort aimed at enhancing revenue collection at the counties on behalf of the devolved units.
KRA has been engaging with individual County governments on various areas of collaboration, as it seeks to improve amounts of taxes the authority collects with efforts already bearing fruit as monthly collections now averaging Sh 1.6billion.
Speaking, when she appeared before the Senate Committee on Finance, Commerce and Budget, Kenya Revenue Authority, Commissioner Domestic Taxes, Alice Owour, disclosed that engagements with the respective County governments are on course with revenues collected from such units now averaging Sh 1.6billion monthly up from Sh 474million KRA collected two years ago.
“We are encouraged by the response from the respective County Governments, which we have been engaging with a view to obtaining their buy-in for our Agency services,” she said adding that indications so far point to a general consensus by the Counties to partner with the authority.
She said KRA is presently reviewing its award winning iTax Domestic taxes platform system to make provision for collection of County specific revenues and once complete, the ongoing negotiations are expected to culminate in the development of an implementation framework and the signing of MOUs with willing County Governments.
She further said that KRA has in the meantime been undertaking extensive Tax Audit exercises at the County level as part of the authority’s mandate to ensure tax compliance in the public sector. So far, the ongoing Audit intervention has covered 37 out of the 47 Counties, about 79 percent representation of all the counties.
As relates to County Governments and Assemblies facing tax claims, Mrs. Owour confirmed that where weaknesses have been experienced during Tax Audits, KRA and the respective County Assembly and Government have gone on to amicably resolve the issues based on the existing legal frameworks.
“Some Assemblies have already made full payment, and have been compliant henceforth, while others are on payment plans and at different stages of resolution,” she said.