KRA hits one-trillion revenue collection mark

Kenya Revenue Authority headquarters, Times Tower Building, Nairobi. [File, Standard]

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has hit the one trillion revenue collection mark. This is after the agency collected Sh 1.030 trillion as at December 8, 2023.

In the month of November, KRA recorded a 15.8 per cent growth compared to the same period last year after collecting Sh 180.714 billion up from Sh 156.095 billion collected in November 2022.

"Revenue collection has progressively increased in the last 5 months (July -November 2023/24) after KRA collected Sh963.746 billion compared to Sh 856.646 billion collected in the same period last financial year, representing a growth of 12.5 per cent," said the agency in a statement on Monday, December 11.

Despite the improvement, however, KRA says there were some economic indicators that impacted the revenue performance, among them the depreciation of the Kenyan shilling against the US dollar by 22.0% in July - November 2023.

"This, coupled with increasing prices of key products like oil has an effect of driving down import demand," said KRA.

"Revenue performance was also affected by low domestic demand as indicated by the slowed Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) that averaged at 47.18 points in July -November 2023 down from 48.66 points in July - November 2022."

KRA says it has recorded the second highest monthly collection in its history.

President William Ruto has defended the move by his administration to increase tax, saying it is the only way to solve the problems facing Kenyans.