The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) added to its tax bracket 76,025 landlords over the last two and a half years, new data has revealed.
According to the taxman, access to the metering database at Kenya Power helped much in netting the landlords, who were initially not paying taxes.
“The use of third-party data has been effective in the recruitment of new landlords. For example, in the financial year 2019/2020, Kenya Revenue Authority used data obtained from Kenya Power & Lighting Company to recruit 5,542 landlords with a collection of rental income of Ksh54 million,” KRA’s commissioner for domestic taxes Rispah Simiyu said as quoted by Business Daily.
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For the year ended June 2020, KRA added 36,082 property owners to its tax bracket, a number that dropped to 34,853 for the year ended June 2021. In the six months to December 2021, KRA added 5,090 landlords to its tax bracket, raking in millions in taxes from the property owners.
All landlords with rent incomes between Ksh288,000 (Ksh24,000 per month) and Ksh15 million (Ksh1.25 million per month) are required to file returns every month.
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Following the amendment of the Tax Procedures Act 2015 through the Finance Act 2016, the taxman was given access to crucial data held by big firms such as bank statements, import records, motor vehicle registration details, water bills and data from the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCCA).
KRA is seeking to deploy a new system in Nairobi and Mombasa with geo-spatial mapping technology aimed at nabbing tax cheats in the real estate sector.
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