The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is reportedly investigating influential individuals from the previous regimes over non-payment of taxes.
According to the Sunday Nation, President William Ruto’s administration is investigating at least 300 companies associated with former President Uhuru Kenyatta and his allies.
The publication reports that National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u and Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) chairperson Anthony Ng’ang’a Mwaura said they are investigating companies enjoying tax exemptions or which have evaded paying their dues.
“There is a law governing exemptions. That is the one we are following strictly,” Prof Ndung’u said.
Mwaura said firms being investigated belong to the ‘untouchables’ of former administrations. He said some of the companies have not been paying taxes since independence.
“Everyone has to come on board when it comes to paying taxes because even the President is paying his taxes. No one in Kenya Kwanza is being exempted from taxation and that is why very many companies of untouchable people of former administrations will have to pay tax now. There are people in this country who have not been paying taxes since independence,” Mwaura said.
He added that some of the companies being investigated are those whose owners were using their closeness with powerful persons in government to intimidate KRA officials.
The ongoing investigations will reportedly also target some individuals in President Ruto’s inner circle.
Mwaura said the taxman has given the companies that have been evading tax timelines to pay up.
The KRA chair told the Sunday Nation that a wines and spirits company of a senior member of the former administration owes KRA Sh7.6 billion.
Another, he said, “is dumping oil in the country for export”.
