Kenya’s VAT Registration Freeze: Cracking Down on Fraud While Impacting Legitimate Businesses

• Kenya’s VAT system is currently paused by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).
• The pause is part of a crackdown on tax fraud and fake traders.
• The “missing trader” scam involves fake companies issuing bogus VAT invoices and disappearing without paying taxes.
• KRA estimates the scam cost billions in lost revenue.
• Internal controls have been tightened to prevent employee collusion.
• VAT collections recently hit a record KSh 32.1 billion after the crackdown.
• New VAT registrations are frozen and existing non-filers are being cleaned up.
• Over 66,000 non-compliant taxpayers have been removed from the system.
• Legitimate businesses face challenges in registering for VAT and conducting operations.
• The crackdown boosts revenue but also causes registration issues for real businesses.
• The business community hopes for a resolution to the current bottlenecks.

Source: techpoint.africa

Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.

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