How eTims Compliance Will Turn Government Failure Into A Weapon Against Kenyans

Kenya has quietly crossed a dangerous line where the state no longer taxes reality, but taxes visibility. Under the eTIMS regime, what matters is no longer whether money was earned or spent, but whether the government’s system saw it. If the system did not see it, the transaction does not exist. And if an expense does not exist, then by bureaucratic magic it becomes profit. This is how a modern tax system begins to tax money that was never made, and it is how governments lose moral authority over citizens who were already struggling to survive.

This is not a debate about whether Kenyans should pay tax. Kenyans already pay too much tax for too little return. This is a debate about whether the state has the right to redefine economic truth simply because it invested in software before investing in people. The idea that an expense can be erased by a missing electronic receipt is not taxation; it is fiction writing backed by penalties.

Small businesses do not operate in spreadsheets and dashboards. They operate in markets, farms, workshops, roadside stalls, construction sites, and informal supply chains that keep this country alive. A trader buying vegetables at dawn, a fundi sourcing material from a yard that does not issue digital invoices, a restaurant paying a farmer in cash, a transporter fueling in rural areas — these are not tax cheats. They are the economy. Yet the state now tells them that unless every person they interact with is digitally compliant, their legitimate costs will be treated as income.

This is how governments criminalise poverty without ever saying so. It is how policy is designed from air-conditioned offices with zero contact with the people expected to obey it. The eTIMS rule assumes a level of digital infrastructure, literacy, trust, and uniform compliance that simply does not exist. Worse, it pretends that this gap is the citizen’s fault, not the government’s failure.

The most offensive part of this policy is not the technology. Technology is neutral. The offense lies in enforcement without preparation. There was no national civic education. No phased rollout respects economic diversity. There was no honest admission that Kenya’s economy is still largely informal and relational. Instead, the rule was gazetted, systems were activated, and silence was used as a strategy. Let the penalties teach them, not education. Let fear do the work of policy.

This is not reform. This is an ambush.

When a government demands compliance, it has a duty to ensure the means of compliance exist. You cannot demand digital receipts where there is no stable internet. You cannot demand electronic invoicing from people who do not own smartphones or computers. You cannot demand reverse invoicing from buyers who are already struggling to manage cash flow. What the state is effectively saying is simple: if your supplier cannot comply, you will pay for their failure. That is collective punishment disguised as efficiency.

This approach does not formalise the economy. It concentrates power. Large corporates will survive because they have systems, lawyers, consultants, and buffers. Small businesses will bleed quietly, adjusting not by compliance but by avoidance, informality, and creative survival tactics. The irony is brutal: a policy meant to widen the tax base will shrink the visible economy while growing the underground one.

Parliament bears direct responsibility for this mess. Legislators were elected to represent people, not dashboards. Yet when faced with complex tax reforms, they chose the easiest path: approve what the Treasury and KRA placed on the table without interrogation. No serious impact assessments were demanded. No sector-specific exemptions were debated. No timelines for infrastructure readiness were enforced. This is not leadership; it is legislative laziness.

A functioning Parliament would have asked hard questions. How do farmers comply? How do rural traders comply? How do informal suppliers comply? What happens to businesses that cannot force compliance down their supply chains? Instead, MPs clapped, passed the law, and went back to campaigning while citizens were left to discover the consequences through tax demands.

The truth is uncomfortable but necessary: Kenya’s tax problem is not compliance; it is trust. Citizens do not resist taxation because they are immoral. They resist because they see waste, theft, and arrogance. When a government that cannot fix hospitals, schools, roads, or security suddenly becomes hyper-efficient at extracting tax, people notice. When compliance feels punitive rather than participatory, resistance becomes rational.

This is why suspending the policy is not weakness. It is wisdom.

The eTIMS enforcement, as currently designed, should be paused until the state fulfills its side of the social contract. Civic education must come first, not as a PDF on a website, but as real engagement in markets, counties, and communities. Infrastructure must follow, including affordable connectivity and devices. Compliance must be phased, starting with those who have capacity, not those barely surviving.

There must be a transitional period where legitimate expenses are recognised even without eTIMS, while suppliers are onboarded gradually. There must be incentives, not just penalties. Tax compliance should feel like a step forward, not a trapdoor.

Most importantly, the government must stop pretending that software is policy. Technology does not replace economic understanding. A database cannot substitute empathy. And efficiency without justice is simply faster oppression.

If Kenya insists on enforcing this policy without adjustment, the result will not be higher revenue. It will be business closures, job losses, price inflation, and deeper mistrust between citizens and the state. The cost of enforcement will exceed the revenue collected, not in shillings, but in social cohesion.

A government that truly wants compliance does not govern by fear. It governs by alignment. It builds systems that people can realistically enter, not walls they are punished for failing to climb. It recognises that the economy is not a spreadsheet but a living organism.

This moment demands courage from policymakers and honesty from Parliament. Either they pause, listen, and redesign this framework with the people in mind, or they proceed and own the consequences. There is no middle ground.

Taxation should never require citizens to prove that money they never made does not exist. That is not governance. That is extortion by algorithm.

Kenya deserves better. And if Parliament will not say it, the people must.

Read Also: Paying Tax on Money You Never Made: The eTIMS Rule That Could Break Small Businesses in Kenya If Civic Education Is Not Done Now