President William Ruto now says that every Kenyan citizen in possession of a national identity card (ID) will be required to have a Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) pin number.
Speaking on Friday during the KRA’s Taxpayers event held at KICC, President Ruto said the directive would help to scale up tax compliance measures by the Authority in a bid to increase tax income.
He cited data by Safaricom Telco Company where about 30 million people are registered under M-Pesa against 7 million people who have KRA Pin numbers saying that his government would leverage technology to increase the tax base and enlist more taxpayers.
He added: “No single taxpayer who is eligible should be left out from this obligation because every exemption denies Kenyans the right to benefit from national resources and is unfair to loyal taxpayers who do the right thing,” Ruto stated.
Consequently, in his overall plans to increase the tax base, the president ordered KRA to double its current collection by the end of his first term and also raise Ksh.3 trillion by the end of the 2022-2023 financial year.
“Our GDP has risen to Ksh.12 trillion, yet KRA only raised about 14% of GDP in revenues last year. In the past, KRA was able to raise 18% of GDP. If we collect the same target today, then we would have raised an extra KShs 400 billion. I expect KRA to raise 3 trillion by the end of the next financial year and to double the current collection in five years,” President Ruto directed.