Use of KRA pin could boost the economy

It appears that in the Finance Bill (2018), Parliament is on course to scrapping plans to introduce a 16 per cent VAT on petroleum products for two years. This is welcome news. It is unconscionable for the government to keep levying ever more taxes on Kenyans in the face of runaway corruption and wastage in the national and county governments. The government should only tax what it needs to provide public goods and services. In other words, taxation should be matched with service delivery.

That said, taxation can also be used to help integrate the national economy. One quack of economic history is that it is only in the 1980s (and in Kenya, to be exact) that the idea of “formal” and “informal” sectors of the economy gained traction in economic thought.