KRA now targeting housing developers

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has changed tact to push landlords to pay the 10percent rental income.

The taxman is now demanding for information from developers to help it map out those earning rental incomes.

In the 2017/2018 financial year, KRA came under a lot of pressure to meet its targets which even saw Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich threaten to personally supervise tax collection.

In its audited accounts for the period up to May 30, 2018, KRA had only managed to collect Ksh.1.4trillion against a target of Ksh.1.7trillion.

This left the taxman with a Ksh.300billion shortfall to collect in just one month.

But following the backlash, the taxman has now set its eyes on nabbing tax cheats in the country.

In one such instance, Citizen Digital is privy to a letter the authority has addressed to a property developer seeking details of its clients.

KRA is further asking for details on the rent payable on the units and when the units were first rented out.

All this is to be provided within seven days of the letters dispatch.

A previous attempt to tax rental income flopped with KRA failing to rope in the 100,000 targeted landlords.

In that plan which was introduced through the Finance Act 2015, KRA slapped a 10 percent flat rate tax on landlords earning less than Ksh.10million a month.

The new strategy analysts reckon will aid the taxman in achieving its near Ksh.2trillion revenue target for this financial year.