KRA moves to bar tax defaulters from export, import business

KRA’s Commissioner General, John Njiraini at the launch of 7th Corporate Plan at Times Towers. [Photo: Courtesy]

Kenya Revenue Authority is stemming up filing of tax returns with defaulters set to be blocked from engaging in import and export business from April 2019.

KRA’s Integrated Customs Management System (iCMS) that is set to be launched in March, will be able to detect tax defaulters from iTax.

Commissioner-General John Njiraini said, “The customs system will have capabilities to share data with iTax so that importers who are not compliant in terms of filing their domestic taxes returns are not able to make their customs declarations.”

Mr. Njiraini said that the delay in the rollout of iCMS has been addressed, even so, will rollout marine cargo operations by March this year.

“We expect by March; we will have fully rolled out everything including the marine cargo which is the bigger part. We are kind of one year late. There were challenges in terms of developer being not able to cope with the speed that we had required, but we have addressed that and we have achieved a lot since we took new steps from August,” Mr Njiraini said.

The iCMS, expected to replace the old Simba system has capability of detecting and blocking clearance of goods that do not meet the set standards on their value.