Opinion: KRA's itax is a scandal of immense proportion

Even after the deadline for tax filing is long gone, the  itax portal at the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) was still congested as early as 5am on July 1.

 Ask yourself, which are these taxpayers who woke up so early to congest the system? This is ample proof that many taxpayers, far above the three million who are reported to have met the deadline, were actually locked out by a compromised system that actually collapsed three days before the June 30 deadline.

The penalty for filing after the midnight June 30 deadline is Sh20,000, an amount 80 per cent of Kenyans cannot afford. 

KRA is partly the cause of our problems as a country. If KRA cannot get its core mandate right, which is allowing taxpayers to file returns and pay their taxes, what makes you think it can protect Kenyans from targetted criminal activity by our elite who bribe to import contraband for personal gain?

The itax system is a scandal of immense proportion yet our parliamentary committee charged with oversight has seen no need to interrogate this system. KRA even causes unconstitutional laws to be drafted like the Tax Procedures Act and the new Income tax Act.

It is very wrong for KRA to blame taxpayers for late filing. They say things like "you had six months to file" and "urgency on your part does not constitute urgency on my part".

Yet it is the substandard itax portal they bought from India (when there were better systems right there at Bangalore) which failed taxpayers a week before the deadline. You cannot blame your clients for your own shortfalls. Can you?  Kariuki Muiri, Karatina