The talk of the town has been the Finance Bill 2024 – Kenyans are set to face additional taxes and amendments, if the bill is passed into law after being tabled in the National Assembly, with many expecting it to make life more difficult as the government looks for more ways to increase its revenue.
Through the bill, Prof. Njuguna Ndung’u, Cabinet Secretary of the National Treasury, has proposed to amend the Data Protection Act, 2019, to grant Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) access to taxpayers’ data held by data controllers and processors, including financial institutions such as banks, telecoms operators and land registries, without a court warrant.
The proposal will see Section 51(2) of the Data Protection Act amended to include a new paragraph that exempts the processing of personal data from the requirements under the Data Protection Act if the disclosure is necessary for the assessment, enforcement, or collection of any tax or duty under a written tax law.
Additionally, the bill proposes to authorize the taxman to issue a notice requiring the integration of the electronic data management and reporting system with the application of electronic tax system to enable submission of electronic documents and transactional data.
In simple terms, the government plans to have organizations integrate their systems with the electronic tax system.
KRA has stepped up its game in ensuring that taxpayers are honestly and accurately filling and paying their taxes, with its enforcement unit looking to a number of ways to pursue tax evaders such as making physical visits and looking into different databases such as water bills, motor-vehicle registration details, bank statements, import records, and Kenya Power bills.
Bottom-line is to increase its revenue targets, which it has continued to miss in recent times. This only covers a section of what the government is looking to amend with the Finance bill, 2024. If the Finance bill 2024 is passed into law, Kenyans will be forced to dig deeper into their pockets.
