What is the role of the tax system in Kenya? How have reforms changed the tax system? This paper by the United Nations University – World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) evaluates Kenya’s tax reforms and reviews the strengths and weaknesses of the tax system. It finds that tax policy has shifted towards greater reliance on indirect taxes (taxes on expenditure) rather than direct taxes (taxes paid directly by an individual or group, like income tax) to increase tax revenues.
Tax reforms in Kenya were initiated under the tax modernization programme (TMP) in the late 1980s. The major objective for undertaking reforms was to create a sustainable tax system that could generate adequate revenues to finance public expenditure and also address issues of inequality. Reforms have had to tackle some common problems facing tax systems in developing countries. These include improving tax administration, increasing tax productivity and reducing economic distortions created by taxes. The importance attached to different objectives such as efficiency, fairness and administrative feasibility of the tax regime has changed over the period of reforms.
Indirect taxes (particularly consumption taxes) have become more significant than direct taxes for raising government revenue. Consumption taxes are viewed as more favourable for investment, and therefore growth. The importance of trade taxes has declined, and they are being used more to foster export-led industrialisation. Some other significant features of Kenya’s tax reforms include:
- Kenya has increased revenues to become a high tax-yield (tax revenue as a percentage of GDP) country.
- Sales tax has been replaced by value-added tax (VAT), but VAT productivity is low.
- Poverty concerns have been addressed mainly by exempting low-income households from income tax. Furthermore, there is no VAT for certain basic food commodities (which form a higher proportion of total spending by the poor than wealthier groups).
- Government commitment to reforms has been positive. There has also been limited political opposition to reforms.
- The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) was established to improve tax administration.
Kenya has reached its tax-yield target of 22 per cent by reducing reliance on direct taxes and trade taxes. The issue is no longer increasing revenues by changing the tax structure. Instead, the emphasis is on improving tax administration to broaden the tax base so that existing tax rates can be reduced without affecting government revenues. Other recommendations include:
- Government revenue collection needs to be consolidated through the KRA.
- Better utilisation of the Personal Identification Number (PIN) assigned to each taxpayer is necessary to increase tax compliance.
- Computerization of KRA systems would increase compliance as it would improve the interaction of the KRA with taxpayers and facilitate follow-up using the PIN. Computerization would also make it easier to consolidate payment of all taxes and levies.
- More work on the distributional impact of taxes is required. There should be a more thorough analysis of the impact of different taxes. In order to do so, disaggregated data at the household level and a well-structured database of the labour market needs to be obtained.
