KRA Commissioner General John Njiraini says the iTax system will allow employees to have all the details containing their monthly tax deductions when filling their returns at the end of financial year, making their work easier/FILE
KRA Commissioner General John Njiraini says the iTax system will allow employees to have all the details containing their monthly tax deductions when filling their returns at the end of financial year, making their work easier.
“When the employers send that money to KRA they also give us your PIN number and say on PIN number X we have deducted this amount of money and here is the cheque. If you are on iTax yourself, it will take that information that has come from your employer, match it against your account, and deposit that information there,” Njiraini explained.
“You know the beauty of it? As an employee, you may also realise that your employer takes your money but does not send it to KRA. And we have instances like that of employers who deduct money but they don’t pay to us,” he said.
At the moment, employees have to follow a long process while making their tax declaration every end of the year despite their tax being deducted and paid by their employers.
Njiraini says before these changes, KRA plans to have more and more companies registered with iTax for easier implementation.
“The reason we are not doing it this year is because we don’t have all the employers in and the campaign now is that when we get all the employers on board you will not have to worry because the employer will literally do all the declarations for you,” Njiraini said.
He says for those in employment, filling returns will just be confirming that your employer has been indeed paying your tax deductions monthly to KRA which will take less than five minutes to complete.
The tax collector now plans to work with the county governments and help in capturing those small businesses which are not in the tax bracket for them to comply. For example, one should not get a business licence if they are not registered on iTax.
Njiraini was speaking while launching a campaign to encourage more taxpayers to registers on iTax while introducing a raft of new changes to the iTax system aimed at encouraging use of online tax filling.
“The goal of the authority is to simplify the process to ensure more Kenyans are tax compliant. The iTax has enabled KRA to better understand taxpayer behaviour, which is critical in designing and implementing effective compliance strategies that contribute to the sustainability of our taxation systems,” he said.
