Expect A Letter From KRA On Existing Balances And Penalties

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) will soon start sending letters and calling taxpayers to inform them of their existing penalties and balances.

KRA is planning to migrate all taxpayers to their new iTax System and says it will not move until the taxpayers are informed of their existing balances and penalties before being moved.

According to the agency, the reconciliation exercise now targets large and medium taxpayers with all other taxpayers expected to be contacted with time.

“During the exercise, taxpayers will be contacted by heads of their respective Tax Stations through letters to confirm their ledger balances before the migration,” Elizabeth Meyo,  Commissioner of Domestic Taxes said in a public notice.

“Communication under this exercise will be a request for confirmation of the correctness of the balances and not an assessment. However, balances transferred after validation will be displayed on the iTax platform for the taxpayer to take the appropriate compliance action..”

Nikhil Hira, Regional Eastern Africa Association and Directo Bowman’s Coulson Harney said the reconciliation of taxpayer’s accounts, “Had been a big issue facing taxpayers for a long time and is critical. Glad to see it is being dealt with.”

In January, the KRA relaxed rules for taxpayers with a simplified self-service feature that encourages transparency and efficiency on its iTax portal. However, this is subject to a clean tax record.

From the platform, taxpayers will be able to update their tax registration details, file tax returns, register all tax payments and make status inquiries with real-time monitoring of the account.

Kenya Revenue Authority has failed to hit its set tax targets on several occasions as pressure from the government piles on it to meet its revenue collection targets in an effort to reduce on government’s appetite for both foreign and local loans.

READ: Fresh Tax Changes Taking Effect in 2020 To Watch Out For