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{
    "id": 1347108,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1347108/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 626,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Molo, UDA",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. Kuria Kimani",
    "speaker": null,
    "content": "give timelines where particular decisions will not be changed every year. They will take some time. One of the key things that we noticed during the Finance Act was when stakeholders told us that if we were to check products that are zero rated and tax exempt is that, if, for example, they are zero rated this year, they will be tax exempt the second year and then, the year after they will be zero rated again. This kind of unpredictability does not look good on us when we are trying to market Kenya as an investment destination of choice. I want to assure Kenyans and the business community that we will try our best to adhere to this national policy so that we have a conducive working tax environment. The proposals that we have made on expansion of the tax base are very critical. If every Kenyan pays their rightful share of tax, we can reduce some of these taxes. What is happening is that we have few people in the tax net. This policy aims to get more people on the tax base. If you have more people contributing towards the national basket, then the burden on individuals contributing to it will be less. Something key to note is that when I was moving this Sessional Paper this morning, I mentioned proposals to shield salaried employees from too much taxation. If you check how companies are paying their taxes, they are allowed to have deductions on their taxes. This is lacking when you look at Pay As You Earn (PAYE). So, as we prepare for the next conversation on the Finance Bill of 2024, this is one of the areas that we hope to look into. Among the people who appeared before us as stakeholders was the Blockchain Association of Kenya. Everybody in the country is using a mobile transfer service because of the revolution in M-PESA that we saw a few years ago. If you send money to my grandmother’s phone in Mukinyai, she will believe that that money is there. That is not something that was there a few years ago before this revolution. Other countries are trying to catch up. We have Apple coming up with Apple Pay. Google is coming up with Google Wallet. An interesting phenomenon that is happening in the financial space is the digital assets is bitcoins and crypto currencies. It is surprising that Kenya is the third largest trader in Africa and one of the highest traders in the world on these. Last year, Kenya traded $1.2billion on crypto currencies and bitcoins. We are calling all these areas “hard to tax areas” This country needs to come up with a legislation that will make sure that there is a legal framework on how it can tax these areas. I know many people mentioned the issue of the Housing Levy and the High Court judgment. I want to laud the Judiciary and the judges for the judgement that they made. They gave us, the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning, a clean bill of health. This Parliament carried out extensive public participation. Many of the clauses that were challenged in court passed the test of time. They were credibly and properly done. That means Parliament is improving in terms of adherence to the law. We cannot be the lawmakers who make laws and be at the same time the ones who do not follow the same laws. With that, I beg to reply."
}