'We're not out to get you': KRA defends efforts to monitor Kenyans' digital transactions

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has moved to reassure Kenyans of the safety of their data, amid efforts seeking to give the authority more freedom to monitor merchant transactions.

According to KRA Board Chair Ndiritu Muriithi, the authority is not interested in people's data for malicious purposes, but only to enable it to ensure that all Kenyans pay their fair share of taxes.

“It’s not that we are out to get you, that’s not what we mean, it’s not like that at all. We are not out to invade your privacy or look into your data,” said Muriithi.

This was the reassurance from the KRA Board boss to Kenyans who have expressed reservation on the efforts by the government to allow the tax man into their transactions.

According to Muriithi, the authority’s efforts to employ new technologies such as artificial intelligence and advanced data analytics in tax collection is purely an efficiency effort aimed at making compliance easy and reducing the cost of doing business and of tax compliance for businesses.

“When you pay by mobile, you pay the restaurant owner who now has to do some work to reconcile and then remit to KRA. KRA on our part we have officers who are following to see that happens yet we can switch the transaction right at the point of payment so that what is going to KRA goes directly to KRA and what is going to Tourism for example goes to Tourism and that would remove the cost on the merchant and remove the cost on KRA,” added Muriithi.

Speaking at the Annual Tax Summit, which brings together different stakeholders to chart a way forward, sector players called for the transformation of the country’s tax administration, urging KRA to re-engineer itself into an agency that is more inclusive away from the enforcer mindset even as they lauded efforts by the authority in the inclusion of small and medium enterprises into the tax bracket.

Deputy Head of Public Service Josphat Nanok said: “KRA must envision a fully integrated seamless system that anchors strategic reforms in efficient service delivery and make compliance with government regulations almost effortless. We must move to a future where filing tax returns is as simple as sending mobile money.”

MSMEs Principal Secretary Susan Mang’eni, on her part, noted: “As a country we need to understand the majority of the people in our economy. We need to see how we make it easy. How does someone on a weekly basis get to work out their turnover so that you know what is it that is tenable. What is it that you then pay as tax?”

The authority is now calling on the National Treasury to allocate more funds to fast track the digitisation process to even as it looks to increase the number of active taxpayers from the current 9 million.