You Will Pay Taxes - Uhuru
He declared that he will not reduce taxes after the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) rolled out new taxes in January 2021.
Marvin Chege 
President Uhuru Kenyatta has called upon Kenyans to embrace paying taxes to help the government achieve its development goals.
He declared that he will not reduce taxes after the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) rolled out new taxes in January 2021.
He was speaking at the National Cargo Deconsolidation Centre in Nairobi, on Wednesday, February 10.
"I will not lower taxes. You will have to pay because there is no other way we can build facilities, roads, and schools. We must pay taxes.
"The only thing we can do is making the remission of taxes easier to avoid stalling business," he urged.
Kenya is racing against the clock to achieve his legacy through the Big Four Agenda, with 18 months left to his retirement.
Uhuru in November 2020 praised KRA for maintaining its traditional excellence in the collection and administration of tax despite the county battling the COVID-19 pandemic.
The tax authority reported a record Ksh 1.607 trillion in tax collected for the financial year 2019/2020 as compared to the previous year where Ksh 1.580 trillion was collected between July 2018 and July 2019. It is targeting Ksh1.57 trillion for the financial year 2020/21.
To achieve that target, the authority rolled out Minimum Tax and Digital Tax in January as part of the new diverse revenue enhancement measures.
Minimum Tax will apply to all businesses, whether they make a profit or not. KRA charges 1 per cent of all gross sales.
Digital Tax is remitted by business people who offer services through a digital marketplace. KRA charges them 1.5 per cent of the gross transactional value.
The Treasury also reversed the tax reliefs Kenyans enjoyed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Corporate Tax was reverted to 30 percent from 25 per cent, Individual Income Tax rate to 30 percent from 25 percent and the Value Added Tax rate (VAT) to 16 percent from 14 percent in January 2021.
