KRA's bid for access to personal data returns in 2025 Finance Bill

KRA's bid for access to personal data returns in 2025 Finance Bill. [File, Standard]

The National Treasury has quietly reintroduced a controversial proposal in the 2025 Finance Bill that seeks to grant the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) access to personal data and trade secrets.

Despite last year's backlash, the Treasury appears undeterred, reviving the same clause with minimal alterations.

Currently, Section 59A (1B) of the Tax Procedures Act explicitly bars the KRA from requiring businesses to share data relating to trade secrets or personal information collected or held on behalf of customers.

According to tax expert Alex Kanyi, the 2025 Finance Bill proposes scrapping that section of the Act to allow KRA to obtain transactional data collected by businesses in real time, even if it contains private customer details.

"They want to do some amendments to the Tax Procedures Act. So basically, KRA will have the real-time view of what is happening in their business. And therefore, they're able to check, this is what your business is producing, vis-a-vis how much taxes you're paying."

Alex Kanyi: The proposal now to the Finance Bill 2025 is to give access to KRA to a person's trade secrets and personal data, to basically anything.#TheSituationRoom

Follow our live conversation on YouTube: https://t.co/zmNw0uSAsu pic.twitter.com/DdKDJshOBZ - SpiceFM (@SpiceFMKE) May 13, 2025

Kanyi explains that previously, there were safeguards: "Initially, there was a limit to say, you can, of course, access my system, but not to access my trade secrets or personal data."

"But now the proposal, if approved, will remove those two limitations, giving the revenue authority full access to anything," he added.

Last year, the KRA had also attempted to gain access to detailed corporate transactional data and trade secrets through proposed legal amendments. However, the Finance and Planning Committee of the National Assembly blocked the initiative.

The committee, chaired by Molo Member of Parliament Kimani Kuria, sided with stakeholders, including the Law Society of Kenya, Kenya Breweries Ltd, and various business lobbies, who argued that the proposal would amount to regulatory overreach and breach data protection laws.

The clause was dropped, limiting KRA's access to only financial data from companies with annual sales exceeding Sh5 million.

However, the authority is back again seeking access through the 2025 Finance Bill.