This archive report was first published on 24 September 2019.
Published on September 24, 2019, Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has announced plans to monitor individuals' M-Pesa transactions in a bid to catch tax cheats.
The move is aimed at netting 1.9 trillion shillings this year, with KRA suspecting that some taxpayers who receive their income through mobile money and other online cash transfer platforms have been dodging taxes.
According to KRA Commissioners Joseline Ogai and Maurice Orei, the agency will match the transactions with the returns made by individual taxpayers to establish whether the figures are consistent.
The taxman is also targeting foreign companies that operate digitally in Kenya but have no physical addresses in the country, including Facebook, Twitter, Uber, and Amazon.
"We are taking data matching very seriously as our next frontier in digital revenue monitoring," Ogai said. "Soon, we will be able to catch tax cheats who make nil or few entries in their tax filings, yet the money they generate online is high."
"You cannot say you file less in returns but the amount of money you handle in your M-Pesa, may be generated from your side hustles, is high and you are not declaring," Ogai added.
Commissioner Orei also announced plans to appoint tax representatives abroad to assist with collecting revenues for companies that operate in Kenya but have no physical addresses.
