Africa-Press – Kenya. President William Ruto has asked Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to stop harassing citizens while collecting taxes.
He said there was a need to change the approach of collecting taxes to be more friendly.
Speaking during the KRA Taxpayers Day, held at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) on Friday, Ruto said there should be consultation and engagement between KRA and citizens instead of harassing them.
“KRA should embrace consultations and engagement with the citizens whenever there are problems on payment of taxes instead of harassing them. Consultation and engagement should be modus operandi,” said Ruto.
He said he will take the lead in the payment of taxes.
Ruto said no group of persons in the country would be exempted from paying taxes.
“I will be the champion for tax payment and ambassador for KRA in urging Kenyans to pay taxes. We should have a fair tax regime where all are treated equally,” said Ruto.
The Head of State said there should be a shift in the payment of taxes to include wealth instead of only focusing on consumption and income.
“Taxation should be around wealth, consumption, income and trade in that order in the ongoing efforts to increase revenue collection,’ said Dr Ruto.
Present were Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, Cabinet Secretaries Moses Kuria (Trade), Eliud Owalo (ICT), KRA Commissioner General Sam Mburu and Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja.
The President noted that a huge obstacle to the realization of the national revenue targets was that in practice, the tax administration has traditionally been a repressive, menacing affair, which resembles extortion.
‘This extinguishes taxpayer incentives and diminishes the prospects of an expanded tax base, pulling Kenya back from its national revenue potential and denying its citizen’s critical services and development programs,” he said
He said tax revenue mobilization was a crucial dimension of state sovereignty, saying the ability to finance national budgets defines true national independence.
He said the Government was committed to instituting comprehensive culture change at the KRA in order to make it more supportive of taxpayers.
“To achieve this, it will be necessary to radically reform KRA and make it a people-friendly, customer-centric organisation that facilitates taxpayer compliance as a core tax administration strategy,” he said.
He said It is now time for a radical shift in our KRA model, focusing on a robust service charter anchored on technology which explicitly commits to transforming customer relationships.
Gachagua said those collecting taxes should not criminalise tax payments but carry out their duties with dignity.
“Let’s embrace consultations and engagement when dealing with issues pertaining to tax collection,” said Gachagua.
Finance CS Prof Njuguna Ndung’u said efforts were being made to ensure more taxes were collected to meet the development needs of the country.
Governor Sakaja said all county payments have been digitalised as part of efforts to eliminate corruption-related issues.
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