October is Kenya’s Taxpayers’ month. During this month, Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) engages taxpayers in various ways, mainly to appreciate their contribution to nation building through payment of taxes. Kenya’s tax system is the main survival and growth artery for the economy.
Without a competent tax agency, a nation cannot sustainably provide welfare to its people and, in essence, cannot grow its economy.
Without adequate taxes, the nation can neither provide public goods such as roads, education and healthcare, nor can it sustain the wage bill of Civil Servants who provide essential services. Thus, the economy can only grow as fast as our public revenue grows.
For a nation to grow, its tax system must function effectively and efficiently. It must mobilise adequate public revenue year after year at the least possible cost, both to itself and to its citizenry. Adequacy of tax revenues is driven by, among other factors, tax compliance by a wide tax base. In order to achieve this, awareness among the citizens is important.
Among the key things that citizens need to appreciate are the various types of taxes, basic calculations of tax, the relationship between tax and provision of basic public services like water, health, education and roads, their rights and responsibilities as taxpayers, and so on.
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It is not in dispute that payment of taxes ranks highly among national priorities. Creation of awareness about national taxes should be a collective national duty and not the preserve of the revenue authority. We must all pool efforts to enhance overall tax compliance by marketing to Kenyans the importance of paying taxes.
Tax collection is an individual as well as a collective national duty and other agencies other than Kenya Revenue Authority have a duty to help grow our national revenue, for without adequate revenue they will also not be adequately funded.
The role of our education system in educating future taxpayers need not be overemphasised. As things stand now, our children have very little understanding of our public revenue system. Indeed, very few of our students understand that they can actually make careers in taxation.
Many high school students may not even know what the word ‘customs’ means. Sadly, we introduce our children to taxation when they land their first job, which makes it very difficult for them to quickly appreciate their patriotic duty as taxpayers.
As such, very few of them develop a conviction that they need to fully comply with tax laws once they enter the tax bracket. Educating our children about tax laws and processes can demystify the tax system and create renewed interest in it. KRA has been playing its part by educating young tax payers but this effort needs to be complemented.
There exists an opportunity to build a wide base of knowledgeable future taxpayers and in effect enhance tax compliance and therefore increase several-fold our revenue collection. That opportunity lies in mainstreaming taxation and public revenue in our education curriculum. Perhaps taxation should be compulsorily offered at all levels of education in Kenya, from the very basic primary levels where children would be taught the meaning and need of taxation to the higher levels where more complex items of taxation can be taught.
As we come to the end of the taxpayers’ month, I invite all Kenyans to re-assess their patriotism by asking ourselves whether indeed we are adequately contributing in building the nation we want.
The managers of our education system should assess whether indeed this sector is educating children about our tax laws, systems and processes. Education should create a human being who can apply knowledge to improve his or her well-being and that of society.
