Why Kenyans should protest against taxation

Every day, the story is the same. Our taxes are being squandered. Whether by the national or county governments. Some governors are looting. So are our Members of Parliament, whether the National Assembly or the Senate. A lot of looted cash is being found in their houses.

The national budget was read. Again, the national government intends to introduce more taxation measures, even against the poorest of the poor. The Senate is crying foul. The Division of Revenue Bill caused all the alarm. The governors are also affected. But actually, what does this mean to mama mboga or jamaa wa makaa?

Taxpayers’ lined up to file tax returns by June 30. In the process, they were actually confirming they paid taxes. Some Kenyans did not. Why? They do not pay taxes. Only a meagre 4 million, out of 46 or so million, are taxed.

Some Kenyans are operating businesses or running companies but seem to evade taxes. Some politicians are busy all the time evading taxes by hook or by crook. Some Kenyans are importing and selling used cars or whatever utensils and evading taxes as well.

MORAL OF THE TALE

So, what is the moral of this story? Kenyans should stop paying taxes to both county and national governments, whenever they get a chance. Why should 4 million formally employed Kenyans carry the burden of an entire nation? The CS for National Treasury must rethink his taxation strategy.

The taxation strategy being used is not only archaic but also obstructive. Sample this: Kenya is reeling from a national debt of about Sh6 trillion. The 2019-20 budget read recently is a Sh3 trillion budget. The deficit is about Sh1 trillion.

As one commentator put it in the dailies, Henry Rotich has gone shopping with Sh1,000 and he is shopping goods worth Sh10,000, thinking the other shoppers will help him pay the rest of the bill. We should refuse to pay.

That is why I request Kenyans to rethink about this budgeting process. It is always an incremental process, without much thought about balancing the budget with Kenyans’ basic needs. It is about getting the President’s so-called ‘Big Four’ agenda, yet Kenyans are dying of hunger, disease and are suffering from illiteracy. Leave alone those people who say they went to school without shoes. Kenyans walk barefoot to work daily.

KENYA REVENUE AUTHORITY

KRA is busy summoning and advertising that Kenyans should pay taxes so that we depend on ourselves.

Inside the KRA, there are thieves of those taxes. Some have been paraded in court for abetting crime through false taxation, or fraud in taxation. They will have their day in court.

Inside the same KRA are people who knowingly think their job description is collect the money for themselves, and the bosses are doing nothing about it. We should be fed up.

If one was to lead the KRA, they must beyond reproach. In the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (Ipoa), the inaugural board had that kind of mindset.

But today, those leading KRA cannot ask Kenyans to file tax returns so that tujitegemee, yet majority of our politicians and shrewd businesses persons are fraudsters, evading taxes every chance they get. It is time Kenyans walking to work, selling vegetables, and doing other businesses refused to file those so-called tax returns.

Anyway, they have already paid taxes indirectly — through a harsh taxation regime that allows the poor to pay more. Indeed, it is contrary to the Marxist ideology that from whom much is given much is expected. In the Holy Bible, in the book of Matthew, it is written that for those who have more, more shall be added, and for those who have less, even that little will be taken away. This could summarise the taxation regime under Rotich.

BIG FOUR AGENDA

The ‘Big Four agenda’ is a hoax. Those amongst us who have served in government, even barely, have stories to tell about what is going on. In one word, it is about procurement. That is the summary.

Procurement for providing government services. First is healthcare, despite the ravages going on in Laikipia county, will still happen. Medical equipment is being purchased at inflated prices. Some people will eat! It’s their turn to do so.

Second is housing. There are those who will get huge contracts to build so-called cheap houses at the expense of civil servants, who are supposed to foot the bill, with a 7.5 per cent taxation regime.

Surely, how do we expect public servants to foot a bill that is like a sweepstake? That whoever gets a house is not predetermined? It is karata. Yet the same people are paying hefty mortgages and rents per month to fuel the housing agenda.

Third is manufacturing. If one peruses who are manufacturers in Kenya, they are not ordinary folk. They are very well connected individuals within the Deep State. For those unfamiliar with this term, the Deep State are individuals with grey hair disguised by dye, who have overall monopoly of power, despite being non-elected men and women. They have seats in what Kenyans call the ‘Kitchen Cabinet’.

Finally, there is the agenda of freedom from hunger and supply of food. So many Kenyans are starving today. Whether from Turkana to Mombasa, from Mandera to Migori, from West Pokot to Kwale, or from Wajir to Kajiado. So who is fooling who? Will people eat the Standard Gauge Railway, as depicted recently by a cartoonist in the dailies?

REVOLTING TAXES

In the early 1990s, there was a residents’ organisation called Karen-Lang’ata Association, in short, Karen-Ngata. This group of citizens refused to pay taxes to the then City Council of Nairobi.

They believed it was not in order to pay taxes for services that are not provided by the city officers. They instead put that money into a kitty to promote their own interests, such as take care of garbage collections, cleaning up their neighbourhoods, dealing with street potholes and such.

Governments are charging taxes for services. That has been a common norm all over the world, from Europe to Asia to the Americas. When in Europe, where many of us have been, including the politicians, some of whom have even been educated there, taxes are used to better the lives of their people. Taxes make someone enjoy free water in the streets, take bus rides for free, provide food stamps for the needy and unemployed, and so on.

In Kenya, contrary to the above notion, taxes are spent on imaginary needs of some politicians, such as house allowances, big motor vehicles, luxury of protection from the same taxpayers, and grandiose projects for delivery of some political agenda. Please note, not legacy. Former President Mwai Kibaki left a legacy, and it is not clear what these agendas are about!

LEGACY IS NOT CLEAR

In conclusion, may we state from the rooftops that legacy is not a Japanese Subaru. By the time 2022 approaches, in our prediction, Kenyans will have borrowed, under this regime, over Sh9 trillion. Again, remember we are currently running into a Sh6 trillion mark. Count three years from today.

With three Eurobonds that one cannot count where those monies were invested. With so much waste in public resources, as documented by the Auditor General’s annual reports. When one read the latter reports, you would know Kenya is in a serious crisis of governance. The legacy is not clear.

Therefore, as Kenyans talk politics, about the present and the future, they should know that all of us, courtesy of our appetite for borrowing, compounded by invidious and conspicuous consumption by the politicians, we are in a crisis of governance. The debt burden is an existential threat to our nation. Our children and grandchildren, born or unborn, already have a huge tax to pay to salvage the debt.

This is what this commentary is about. That Kenyans must take action about this taxation regime. We can refuse to directly pay taxes. The indirect ones cannot be done away with, as they are taxed ‘from source’, as they put it. We need a national conversation, from the local village tree to the national level, to review what our taxes are being spent on.

 Tom Kagwe, JP, is a political scientist and a commentator on national issues. The views contained herein are to elicit informed debates about the taxation in Kenya.