Principal Secretary for Treasury Chris Kiptoo has publicly refuted that Kenyans pay too much in taxes, claiming they lack direction and patriotism in making their fair share of taxes. 

 PS Kiptoo responded to the public outcry over higher taxes in the nation on Tuesday at a Parliamentary Group meeting presided over by President William Ruto in Naivasha, Nakuru County. He called it a lack of "education and awareness" on the part of Kenyans regarding taxes. 

The PS claims that although Kenya has a lower tax rate than other countries, its people were reluctant to pay their taxes because they needed more zeal and drive.

"I think it is more about education and awareness. We seem to have lost this story about taxation where people are saying we are overtaxed; I don't think we are if you do a comparison with other countries," he said.


Kiptoo continued by comparing paying taxes and the growing number of harambees detained across the nation on various occasions, implying that the former was a sign of the latter's financial stability. 

 To pay their taxes, he urged Kenyans to redirect the same energy the Harambees use.

"If Kenyans are paying Harambees, especially where I come from, every weekend someone is willingly paying harambees, and we don't struggle. How comes when we come to paying taxes, we have to struggle," he noted. 

"We need patriotism where everyone is paying taxes because it is good for us."

Since many people do not pay taxes, there is hope for us to increase revenue. Twenty million Kenyans are on file with us, and 20 million pins are registered with KRA. Just 8.5 of them are active and need to make tax payments. 


The PS also expressed concern that many Kenyans, according to data from the Kenya Revenue Authority, need to comply with government tax demands. 

 Even though the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) claims to have 20 million registered Kenyans, he claims that only about 8 million were filing taxes. He further suggests that the government look into ways to raise the tax bracket and ensure that registered Kenyans become compliant.

"We think that there is hope for us to raise revenue because there are many people not paying taxes. We have 20 million Kenyans registered…KRA has 20 million registered pins. There are only 8.5 that are active and are not even paying taxes," Kiptoo said.