The government of Kenya is seeking to increase its tax base in order to boost domestic resources mobilization. Under this strategy, the country plans to raise the number of active taxpayers from 3.94 million currently to 7 million by 2022.
The announcement was made by Francis Muthaura (pictured), Head of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) which manages domestic revenue mobilization in the country, on the sidelines of the launch of 2019 taxpayer's month.
“The tax base expansion focuses on tapping into the potential provided by technology to identify and bring into the tax net, Kenyans who are engaged in gainful business and who ought to be paying tax but are not,” Muthaura said. The measure will also help fight fraud, the manager explained.
The government recently announced it is cutting budget spending by 2.1% in 2019-20 and expects the budget deficit to drop to 5.6% during the current year, against 7.4% the previous year. In recent years, due to weak tax revenue collection, the country has increased syndicated and bond borrowing to finance its development projects.
Moutiou Adjibi Nourou