The Kenya Revenue Authority may have direct access to payments made by the state to various suppliers from next month on completion of integration of iTax with Integrated Financial Management Information System.
The taxman said it is in the final stages of linking its electronic tax filing system iTax with the IFMIS – the platform through which the government pays its suppliers.
“We expect the rollout to happen anytime now. By the end of this month we should actually be having that integration already operational and, of course, we will continue improving on it,” KRA commissioner for support services Ezekiel Saina said yesterday at the ongoing second Annual Taxpayers' summit at the KICC.
The move is aimed at increasing collection of withholding VAT and income tax from government’s development budget standing at Sh809 billion this financial year, a system expected to boost KRA’s revenue collections.
“Whatever the national and county governments are doing with any of their suppliers or whoever, we will actually have visibility of that,” he said. “So we have got the withholding VAT of 16 per cent which will get into the iTax system. Thereafter, we will expect the balance of the tax to be paid by those suppliers.”
The taxman aims at sealing possible revenue leakages to achieve the ambitious Sh1.38 trillion target in collection for this financial year ending next June.
The authority, which narrowly missed its revised collection target in the last financial year, yesterday also launched a new Information Communication Technology Strategy as it seeks to leverage on technology to enhance revenue collection and customer service.
“We are already sharing information. Right now we are working to integrate iTax, IFMIS and the Central Bank of Kenya system for purposes of having visibility on the transactions taking place in other government agencies and county governments especially,"Saina said.
Commissioner for legal services and board coordination Wairimu Ng’ang’a said the authority has
noticed discrepancies at county governments.
“When we look at the monies which they have been given from the national caucus vis-a-vis what has been declared, there is a big gap, but these are issues which we are going to address as the completed integration comes into place,” Ng’ang’a said.
Tax collections in July and August were Sh178.20 billion, a Sh25.47 billion or 16.68 per cent growth, over Sh152.73 billion the taxman collected in the same period of the 2015-16 financial year.