News

KRA and KEPSA Forge Stronger Collaboration to Drive Voluntary Compliance

2025-06-12T07:01:52+00:00

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) and the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KePSA) have reaffirmed their commitment to deepen collaboration in support of a fair, inclusive and transparent tax environment. In a recent high-level meeting between the KRA and KePSA boards, the two institutions agreed on a joint agenda to enhance voluntary compliance, expand the tax base and build a predictable business environment through structured dialogue.

Speaking during the engagement, KRA Board Chairman Hon. Ndiritu Muriithi underscored the importance of trusted partnerships in driving Kenya’s revenue performance. “KePSA plays a vital role in representing a cross-section of the private sector. Through structured engagement and shared insights, we can co-create solutions that ease compliance, unlock new revenue streams, and ultimately drive economic growth,” he said.

In his remarks, KePSA Chairman Dr. Jas Bedi welcomed the partnership, noting that the private sector is a willing ally in strengthening Kenya’s fiscal framework. “We appreciate KRA’s openness to continuous dialogue. This engagement ensures that tax reforms are practical, predictable and in alignment with the realities businesses face on the ground,” he said.

KRA Board, led by Hon. Ndiritu Muriithi, hosts KEPSA for strategic talks on tax, VAT refunds, SEZs, and digitization—committing to ongoing collaboration for a better business environment.

The engagement provided a platform to assess ongoing reforms at KRA, including the digitization of tax processes, compliance support framework for MSMEs, and the strengthening of cooperative compliance frameworks for large taxpayers. KePSA commended KRA for the recent tax amnesty initiative, which has provided a fresh start for businesses and individuals seeking to regularize their tax affairs.

Both organizations emphasized the need to formalize joint technical working groups to address sector-specific tax challenges, develop taxpayer education programs for SMEs, and advance the mutual goal of simplifying the tax regime. These efforts are expected to boost compliance and bring more businesses into the formal fold.

The collaboration also aligns with KRA’s broader strategy to expand the active taxpayer base—from the current 9 million to 13 million by 2027—while enhancing trust and transparency through stakeholder engagement. KePSA pledged to support KRA’s efforts by mobilizing its membership base for outreach, feedback and policy dialogue forums.

Moving forward, KRA and KePSA have committed to regular quarterly engagements and a shared monitoring framework to track progress on agreed actions. The next joint forum is expected to focus on taxation in the digital economy, customs reforms, and investment incentives for priority sectors.

This renewed partnership reflects a shared understanding that sustainable development relies not only on effective revenue collection, but also on fair, inclusive and consultative tax administration.

Board Chairman

Over 500,000 Kenyans Heed Tax Amnesty Call with Ksh 20.8 Billion in Overdue Principal Taxes Paid

2024-04-25T08:20:23+00:00

KRA waives Ksh 244.7 billion in penalties and interests
Ksh 28.7 billion Declared in Unpaid Principal Taxes.

Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has registered a major milestone after over half a million Kenyans benefitted from the ongoing Tax Amnesty Programme to regularise their tax compliance status.

The initiative has seen taxpayers pay their overdue principal taxes amounting to Ksh 20.8 billion, with a total of Ksh 28.7 billion having been self-declared as unpaid taxes. Taxpayers who had defaulted on filing and paying their taxes have so far benefited from Ksh 244.7 billion in waiver of penalties and interests.

KRA encourages more taxpayers to take advantage of the programme. The Authority urges Kenyans who have not been filing their returns to do so before 30th June 2024 and those that have not been paying and have accrued penalties and interest on their unpaid principal taxes to take advantage of the amnesty and clear any outstanding principal tax debts by 30th June 2024.

The Finance Act, 2023 introduced the Tax Amnesty Programme to allow taxpayers to benefit from amnesty on penalties and interest accrued for periods up to 31st December 2022, upon full payment of their respective principal taxes by 30th June 2024. There will be no amnesty, waiver, or write-offs on penalties and interests after 30th June 2024. Further, KRA clarifies that the Tax Amnesty does not apply to customs and import duties and interest and penalties accrued after 30/12/2022.

Additionally, the tax amnesty programme aims to enhance compliance and revenue mobilization, while giving taxpayers with tax disputes a leeway to benefit from the existing Alternative Tax Dispute Resolution framework.

KRA Redeploys Ms Lilian Nyawanda as Commissioner Customs & Border Control

2023-10-11T11:44:15+00:00

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) board has re-deployed Ms Lilian Nyawanda to the position of Commissioner Customs & Border Control (C&BC) to take over the implementation of initiatives that will drive Customs revenue.

The re-deployment follows her release by the National Treasury and Economic Planning, where she served on secondment. Ms Nyawanda has a wealth of experience in customs administration, policy and legislation.

She had served as Commissioner C&BC for over two years at The Kenya Revenue Authority, before her secondment to The National Treasury and Economic Planning. She will be instrumental in overseeing the department’s core business of trade facilitation, border control and revenue mobilisation.

Ms Nyawanda has been resourceful to KRA in her service as Commissioner C&BC, she brings onboard, a broad wealth of experience gained from public sector, private sector and academia in customs and international trade matters both within the East Africa region and Africa in general. She holds a Master of Business Administration (Strategic Management) degree from United States International University and a Bachelor of Commerce (Finance) degree from University of Nairobi. She has a Certificate in Customs and Tax Administration from the Kenya School of Revenue Administration (KESRA).

Ms. Nyawanda is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Public Policy & Administration from Walden University and is a member of the National Society of Leadership and Success (Sigma Alpha Pi Honor – September, 2020).

KRA’s Commissioner General Humphrey Wattanga, confirmed that the Board has redeployed Ms. Nyawanda as Commissioner of Customs and Border Control. The Commissioner General said that the role is a key pillar in delivering KRA’s vision and steering revenue to support the Government’s development agenda.

COMMISSIONER GENERAL

KRA's Staff Volunteerism Programme Praised by Global Movement for Doing Good

2023-02-23T09:41:22+00:00

A global movement has commended KRA’s staff volunteerism programme, which is part of the organisation’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives. Mr Kaynan Rabino, the President and CEO of Good Deeds Day, spoke when he visited KRA to explore areas of collaboration and knowledge transfer on the staff volunteerism programme. Good Deeds Day is a global movement of people and organisations dedicated to doing good every day.

Innovative Social Engagement Approach

Mr Rabano said the initiative is a unique and innovative social engagement approach that can yield a lot of success as doing good is the initial step that propels volunteerism in a society. He encouraged KRA to continue with the model as there is opportunity to document the staff volunteerism programme to showcase and transfer the knowledge to other government agencies, specifically, in the Second Africa Regional Volunteerism Conference in August 2023. More than 30 African countries will gather in Nairobi for the conference. KRA is the only government institution that is a member of Volunteering Involving Organization Society (VIO Society), the national volunteerism secretariat housed by the Department Social Services in the Ministry of Labour.

President and CEO of Good Deeds Day Mr Kaynan Rabino (3rd R), the movement's Kenya representative Mr. Fredrick Sadia (2nd L) and Chair of VIO Society Mr Meshak Odede (L) with Chief Managers Mr Andrew Osiany (2nd R) of Stakeholder Engagement & Events management and Ms Sheila Mugusia (3rd L) of Public Relations & Communication. On the right is Assistant Manager in charge of CSR Ms Felgona Ochieng.

KRA Chief Manager for Public Relations & Communication Ms Sheila Mugusia, in whose docket CSR is domiciled, said her team is working on branding development projects that have been financed by taxes to emphasise that ‘Kulipa ushuru ni kutenda wema'. Through this, KRA also seeks to influence the public perception and build positive reputation in the long run. Mr Rabano was accompanied by Good Deeds Day Kenya representative Mr Fredrick Sadia and the Chairperson of VIO Society Mr Meshak Odede.

By Felgona Ochieng

KRA Board appoints Acting Commissioner General

2023-03-13T13:50:42+00:00

The KRA Board has appointed FCCA, CS Rispah Simiyu (Mrs), Advocate, EBS as the Authority’s Acting Commissioner General. The appointment was made following the resignation of FCPA, Githii mburu MGH, CBS who left KRA to pursue his personal interests. In bid to enhance revenue mobilization agenda and synergies in top management, the following changes were effected:

Mrs Pamela Ahago – Acting Commissioner for Customs & Border Control

Mr David Mwangi – Acting Commissioner for Domestic Taxes

Mr David Yego – Commissioner for Intelligence, Strategic Operations, Investigation and Enforcement

Ms Nancy Ng’etich – Acting Commissioner for Corporate Support Services

Dr. Mohammed Omar, Dr Mwirigi Mugambi and Mr Paul Matuku remain Commissioners for Strategy, Innovation and Risk management, Kenya School of Revenue Administration and Legal https://www.kra.go.ke/administrator/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&layout=edit&id=1926#Services and Board Coordination respectively.

n

2022-09-23T10:47:41+00:00

Two New KRA Board Members Sworn In at the Supreme Court

2022-08-15T11:05:06+00:00

Pursuant to Gazette Notice No. 9308 of 5th August, 2022, The Cabinet Secretary, National Treasury & Planning, Hon. Amb. Ukur Yatani, EGH gazetted the appointment of Mrs. Sally Mahihu and Amb. Richard Opembe as members of the Board of Kenya Revenue Authority.

This Morning, Mrs. Sally Mahihu and Amb. Richard Opembe were officially sworn in at the Supreme Court Building, Nairobi in a brief ceremony presided over by Chief Registrar of the Judiciary, Ms. Anne Amadi.

After the swearing in, the two (2) new directors also had a short meeting of introduction to the Chief Justice and Deputy Chief Justice of the Republic of Kenya.

KRA innovations and process improvements for Refunds and Air Cargo Processes

2022-06-27T08:09:08+00:00

KRA has adopted several innovations in the financial year 2021/22, in a bid to optimize the Refunds and Air Cargo business processes.

The objective was to improve processing turnaround of the 2 focus areas:

Refunds BPR Innovations
Air Cargo Clearance BPR Innovations

A comprehensive root cause analysis was conducted to establish factors resulting to the inefficiencies and long turnaround times for the processes. The below were identified as some of the customer pain points, process bottlenecks and gaps impacting the processes:

Refunds Pain Points

The refunds pain points identified were loss of debt reports that were manually shared leading to prolonged back and forth between debt and refunds team, tedious and error-prone cross checking of manual checklists for refunds validity and manual verification of green channel applicants, all these affecting the refunds overall SLAs.

Air cargo process pain points

The identified Air cargo process pain points include losses incurred by traders (especially for perishable goods) due to delays in the clearance process, high storage charges incurred by importers due to delays in clearance, delays in permit approvals by Partner Government Agencies, tedious/inefficient payment process and delay in payment processing due to system issues and delays in goods verification, which is done at different times by the respective PGAs instead of joint verification.

Business Process Innovations

The business process re-engineering and the business teams implemented the below innovative initiatives as process improvement interventions for both the refunds and air cargo processing:

Automating refunds debt report request process workflows to create tasks visibility and track service level agreement timelines
Use of online repositories towards paperless processes and increase in access and control of refunds debt reports, this has eliminated the loss of manual debt reports.
Use of automated checklist and risk profiling technologies to improve case selection and processing to reduce the manual review of checklist and manual identification of green channel claimants.
Use of agile methodologies and best practices and tools in business process re-engineering to simplify and create visibility of the authority’s processes to enhance compliance
Development and implementation of SLA for Cargo clearance by PGAs
Documentation of an Incident and change management process including an Escalation matrix to resolve customer complaints
Setup and Operationalization of a joint KRA and Kentrade Contact center to resolve customer issues to eliminate disjointed verification by the PGAs
Implementation of direct release of consignments with pre-importation permits without a 'hold' in the KESWS system Except for those flagged by the Risk Management Engine.

Benefits of Process Innovations

The benefits realized from the above implemented interventions include:

Improved Refunds processing rate due to the streamlined requests for debt status reports. (May 2022 SLA: 66 days against Target of 90 days)
Process visibility: 100% of debt report status requests done on the implemented platform, enhancing tracking movement debt status report requests
Ease of green channel claimants
Improved access and security of debt status reports repository
Automated management report reducing time taken to prepare, consume and make decisions
Automated classification of refunds claimants into the different processing channels
Expected reduction in the time taken (from Avg 11days to less than 48hrs) to clear Air Cargo thus reduced losses by traders
Expected reduction of customer complaints by 20%

The continuous process analysis by the Business Analysis and Quality Engineering team has established further improvement opportunities, including iTax enhancements, that will form part of the financial year 2022/2023.

KRA intercepts motorists with 39.8 Kgs of Cannabis

2021-12-24T11:59:39+00:00

Two motorists have been intercepted with 39.8kgs of Cannabis along Muhuru/Koweru/Kopanga road within Nyatike sub-county in Migori. KRA officers acted on a tip-off from an informer and managed to intercept the contraband goods concealed in polypropylene bags.

The suspects managed to escape after knocking off the barrier mounted by the Muhuru Bay KRA patrol team and are still at large. KRA officers took into custody the intercepted marijuana as well as the two (2) motorbikes used for transportation. A notice of seizure number 017354/5 has since been issued for the Cannabis Sativa and the two Motorbikes deposited at the Isibania OSBP Customs warehouse.

Conveyance/Possession of restricted/prohibited goods is contrary to Sections 199(b) and 200 of the East Africa Community Customs Management Act 2004.

KRA has aggressively embarked on protection of society and eliminating tax evasion in the country which has led to several arrests and prosecutions that have resulted in the unearthing of various tax fraud schemes.

Taxpayers are encouraged to remain complaint with tax laws in order to avoid punitive enforcement measures including prosecution.

Commissioner, Investigations and Enforcement

The State applauds KRA’s revenue mobilisation efforts with a record number of Awards and Honours

2021-12-17T18:02:05+00:00

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has welcomed the highest number of decorations ever accorded to its staff members; by the State at the recent 58th Jamhuri Day Celebrations.

In recognition of the Tax Administration Authority's exemplary performance in revenue mobilisation, KRA officers received a total of 24 State commendations ranging from the Third Class: Moran of the Order of the Golden Heart (M.G.H.) to the Head of State’s Commendation (HSC-Civilian Division) awards and honours.

In the last financial year, characterised by the Covid-19 pandemic, KRA defied all odds to surpass its revenue target after eight (8) years, with a new record collection of Kshs 1.669 Trillion. KRA surpassed its Kshs. 1.652 Trillion targets with a surplus of Kshs. 16.808 Billion representing a performance rate of 101% and revenue growth of 3.9% compared to the last Financial Year.

During the last financial year, under Chairman Amb Francis Muthaura and Commissioner General Githii Mburu, KRA also recorded a milestone after revenue collection more than doubled in the last ten years from Kshs. 707 billion in F.Y. 2011/12 to Kshs 1.669 Trillion in F.Y. 2020/21, representing a growth of 136% in the last ten years.

Speaking when he acknowledged the state recognitions, KRA Commissioner, Corporate Support Services Dr David Kinuu said the awards were accorded across the Authority's ranks.

"KRA officers wish to express their sincere gratitude to the Head of State for the high honours which will serve to motivate the hard-working tax administrators further'," Dr Kinuu said. He added that "the Authority has received a total of 24 decorations right from Board Members, Commissioners, Deputy Commissioners, Management, and Support Officers."

In the Award of Orders, Decorations and Medals granted to deserving citizens for their public service and contribution to national Development, KRA Commissioner General Mburu received the Third Class: Moran of the Order of the Golden Heart (M.G.H.) as Board members Rose Waruhiu and Maryann Njau received the Second Class: Elder of the Order of the Burning Spear (EBS) awards.

KRA Commissioners Dr David Wachira Kinuu, Rispah Muthoni Simiyu, Paul Muema Matuku and Terra Saidimu Leseeto were conferred with The Second Class: Elder of the Order of the Burning Spear (EBS) Awards while Deputy Commissioners Grace Wandera, Joseph Kaguru and George Omondi Obell received the Third Class: Moran of the Order of the Burning Spear (M.B.S.) awards.

Other awardees included Wageni Wambaa, James Mwawana Muema, Christine Wambui Mwangi, Jane Mkubwa Bukachi and Peter Kidungwa Alama, who received the Head of State’s Commendation (HSC-Civilian Division).

The Authorities 8th Corporate Plan outlines plans and targets to collect Kshs. 6.831 trillion by the end of Financial Year 2023/2024. With taxpayers' support, the projected economic recovery of 6.6 % in 2021, progressive tax policy frameworks, and a robust tax compliance mechanism, KRA is confident that it will achieve this target and enable the country to sustain its economy.