Francis Muli
The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has softened its stance on dormant taxpayers, a day after announcing that it would cancel Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) for persons who fail to file returns.
In a notice published in the local dailies on Monday, the taxman issued a 30-day ultimatum to all persons eligible to remit Value Added Taxes as well as income taxes to file their returns or lose their PINs.
However, Kenyans took an issue with the notice, that seemed to wage war on dormant taxpayers, especially due to the harsh choice of words used in the notice.
KRA has consequently cancelled the Monday notice and issued a fresh one on Tuesday, this time undersigned by the commissioner for domestic taxes instead of the commissioner for legal and board coordination.
Read: KRA Threatens to Deregister Pins of Kenyans who Fail to File Returns
In the first notice, the PINs would be cancelled without notice, while in the second one the commissioner for domestic taxes shall notify those who will be affected.
“Please be advised that the Commissioner shall notify the affected taxpayers of the intention to deactivate/cancel their registration via their iTax registered email addresses. Where a person is deregistered, the cancellation of the person’s registration shall take effect from the date specified in the notice of cancellation. Notwithstanding the cancellation of registration, the person shall be liable for any act done or omitted while registered,” said KRA.
KRA encouraged the affected individuals to take advantage of its ongoing voluntary tax disclosure program (VTDP) to rationalize outstanding tax payments and meet the filing requirement.
“Taxpayers are also encouraged to take advantage of the Voluntary Tax Disclosure Program to disclose tax liabilities that were previously undisclosed to the Commissioner for the purpose of being granted relief of penalties and interest on the disclosed taxes,” added the statement.
KRA PIN certificate is mandatory in the opening of a bank account, job applications, and even land registration.
January 1, 2021, marked the beginning of the tax return filing season for the 2020 year of income. The deadline for filing the returns is June 30, 2021.
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