Taxpayers rush to file returns ahead of deadline

Thousands of taxpayers yesterday rushed to file their tax returns ahead of today’s midnight deadline set by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).

A mini-survey by The Standard team saw long queues at many of the KRA’s offices across a number of urban centres across the country.

A number of them interviewed said they were unable file the returns online and blamed KRA’s systems. They reckoned that they had to go to KRA centres physically to file their tax returns.

However, KRA refuted claims that their systems had gone down less than 24 hours before the June 30 deadline.
People stood in long lines for hours waiting to manually file taxes in an attempt to beat the deadline.

KRA said their systems were working and had been functional throughout the process. They admitted that queues were indeed long during the last few days. Many Kenyans filed returns using KRA digital filing system helping the taxman to improve on the tax collection.
According to KRA, over 1.2 million Kenyans filed their annual returns through the iTax system.

Kenya Revenue Authority Commissioner General John Njiraini said there has been weak performance in the business sector, which has undermined the tax collection process.

Though the revenue growth was low, KRA said that the 11.9 per cent was solid considering the tough economic times that the country is experiencing. However, the number of registered tax payers increased by 37.5 percent from 1.6 million.

KRA states that there are record 100,000 returns daily. This number is expected to rise as the deadline approaches