Simplify VAT registration for non-residents to encourage compliance

Corazon Ongoro is a Tax consultant at PwC Kenya

NAIROBI, KENYA: In July 2013, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ("OECD") with the backing of the G20 countries, released a 15-point Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (“BEPS”) action plan.

Action one of this plan sought to address the tax challenges of the digital economy. Two years later, the OECD, in its 2015 final report "Addressing the Tax Challenges of the Digital Economy", identified a number of challenges, among them that of collecting Value Added Tax (“VAT”) within the digital economy on cross border business-to-consumer (“B2C”) transactions.