KRA To Be Renamed To KRS – William Ruto

President William Ruto on Thursday proposed the renaming of Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to Kenya Revenue Service (KRS). Speaking during the official opening of the 13^th parliament, Ruto said the move is part of a culture change to make the taxman people friendly.

“We will also work with the Kenya Revenue Authority on a culture change to make it a people-friendly, customer-centric organization. I am of the view that we should rename it the Kenya Revenue Service in line with the proposed transformation,” he said.

Ruto vowed that his government will also propose new tax measures that will see the county move in the right direction.

“The economic principles of equitable taxation require that the tax burden reflects the ability to pay. This is best achieved by a hierarchy that taxes wealth, consumption, income, and trade in that order of preference,” he added.

The proposal to change the KRA name was first announced in April by the outgoing cabinet secretary for treasury Ukur Yatani. Yatani said the move was meant to change the image of the authority to subsequently enhance tax compliance.

“The change of the name is intended to rebrand the Authority and transform its public image thus enhancing tax compliance through improved public relations and maintaining a clear focus on taxpayers’ needs,” he said.

The proposal was however rejected by  Members of Parliament (MP) in June.

KRA has over the years grappled with cases of tax evasion which has seen the country lose billion of money. The taxman revealed that it loses an estimated 12 billion shillings yearly from excise tax evasion alone.

In July, KRA disclosed that it had surpassed the 2 trillion mark in the annual revenue collection for the first time in Kenya’s history. This was despite economic uncertainties occasioned by the covid 19 pandemic.  It recorded a monumental revenue collection of 2.031 Trillion shillings for the Financial Year 2021/2022 (July 2021 – June 2022) compared to 1.669 Trillion shillings collected in a similar period in the last financial year.

According to the taxman, the positive revenue growth rate was helped by the improved tax compliance from patriotic taxpayers who contributed to the collection of a revenue surplus of 148.9 Billion shillings against the original target.

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