Nandi senator samson cherargei has filed a motion with the senate to amend an act that exempted Kenya's first president and his successor from paying daniel arap moi from paying estate duty levy, also known as inheritance tax.
cherargei wants the original wording of the Act that said that the Act is in section 7 (3) of the Estate Duty Act CAP 483 and does not apply to the late mzee jomo kenyatta and daniel moi. The petitioners, including cherargei, claim that the section of the Act infringes Article 210 (3) of the Act that requires all state officers to pay tax.
This petition comes at a rift between former president uhuru kenyatta and current president William ruto. President ruto said that everyone in the country has to pay their fair share of the taxes to revamp the economy. The kenya kwanza government has accused the former president of being behind the azimio rallies to avoid the tax talk.
The confusion over the tax row is because the estate duty or inheritance tax cannot be paid by the dead and needs to be clarified by land rates everyone pays. The Kenyatta and mois families were exempted from the inheritance tax because kenya is a member of the Commonwealth nations. this Act exempts the head of state from the estate duty tax.
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critics claim that if the proposal goes through, then every Kenyan will be required to pay the estate duty and that stated the Kenyatta and mois names from the Act would not make an impact since the two families' estates will not pay a shilling because the Act was abolished in the early 1980s and that the only way to make them start paying in future is to repeal the Estate Duty (Abolition) Act of 1982
raila odinga, on the other hand, is calling this move by kenya kwanza a political witch hunt targeting the kenyatta family. The ODM leader says that the estate act duty that exempted the two families from paying inheritance tax was abolished in 1982 and that the Act now exempts every Kenyan from paying the estate duty.
Raila claims that the rutos camp does not understand how the law works—urging Kenyans to resist high taxes from the current regime. Mama ngina kenyatta came out to defend herself and the Kenyatta estate, denying that they had not been paying their fair share of the taxes. She said she is ready to sell her properties and pay her share if an investigation finds that she has not been paying it.
President William ruto seemingly responded to the claims by mama ngina, saying that he is happy that his critics have agreed to pay their share of the taxes, adding that there will be no waivers for anyone regardless of their status in society and that by doing this, the country will be out of debt.
