When a friend was applying for a Kenya Revenue Authority PIN some years ago, the closest he thought he could get the service was from a cyber café.
Years later, he realised that in the course of the application, the cyber attendant had picked the Value Added Tax obligation which is for people in business only. It took a while before the obligation could be deregistered.
His case without a doubt is a carbon copy of many others whose root cause boils down to cyber cafes and self-styled tax experts. Matters taxes and registration of tax obligations are serious and deserve the best possible guidance from the right professionals.
Currently, we are in the annual tax returns filing season where all individual PIN holders and corporates, whose year of income runs from January to December, are required to file their tax returns on or before June 30.
Unfortunately, you will still find some taxpayers visiting some rogue tax ‘experts’ who have no basic know-how of what this crucial exercise entails. Some of these ‘experts’ are out there to make a kill and will, in turn, do whatever it takes to balance that tax return, so long as they get the agreed cut.
Consequently, a taxpayer is left in a crisis that they could have easily avoided if they sought assistance from KRA. The government has commendably brought services closer to the people through flagship projects such as the famous Huduma Centres.
This has made it easier for ‘Wanjiku’ even in the most remote places of this country to access government services more effectively. With this in view, there should be no reason why a taxpayer in need of, say tax returns filing assistance, would seek the help elsewhere; where mark you, a fee applies yet there is a Huduma Centre or a KRA office nearby.
- Kitui
