Small business kicked off the new year on a bad note crying and complaining of the new measures imposed by the taxman.
The business owners have been questioning the tax man to come up clean on the new levies imposed to them.
The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has said the new presumptive tax rolled out this year is aimed at expanding assets and not punishing small traders.
According to Head of Corporate Policy (Legal Reforms and Tax Policy) Morris Oray, the fee is a replacement of the turnover tax.
…previously we had what we call turnover tax, challenge that arose was it was very difficult to administer coz these people don’t keep records,” said Oray.
“… We replaced it with presumptive tax, there is no double taxation and we just have a simpler and more convenient way for them to pay tax,” he told Citizen TV on Monday.
Mr. Oray further said the new tax is based on 15 percent of the licenses traders pay to county government every year and not annual turnover.
The revenue body indicated that one of the focus areas is to ensure that small business owners pay a reasonable amount of taxes.