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{
"id": 1498173,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1498173/?format=api",
"text_counter": 333,
"type": "speech",
"speaker_name": "Kikuyu, UDA",
"speaker_title": "Hon. Kimani Ichung’wah",
"speaker": null,
"content": "variation or waiver on revenue collection and the likely economic impact of the variation or waiver. The Cabinet Secretary in charge of the National Treasury could even waive taxes, levies or licensing fees under the old Constitution before 2010. Even the Cabinet Secretary lost that power under the new Constitution. Indeed, it is only this House that has the power to waive or even impose taxes. That is why Clause 5 of this Bill has provisions that relate to waivers and variations. Again, it is to guard against abuse of processes. You may find chief officers, chief finance officers, county executive committee members or even people in our National Treasury varying and waiving fees, penalties and interests. Without anticipating debate, that is why you find one of the Bills, namely, the Tax Procedures Bill, currently undergoing public participation after being read for a First Time last week, has a particular provision dealing with tax amnesty. As I said, it is only through Parliament that you can waive penalties or interest on tax arrears that the public owes the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) or other Government agencies. I look forward to the Second Reading of the Tax Procedures Bill when it comes up for debate. I know many Kenyans are owed tens of billions of shillings across the country, especially members of the public who did business with many of our county governments. They cannot be paid and yet, KRA is on their necks demanding taxes, and imposing penalties and interests, on what they are owed simply because they invoiced. They were supposed to pay taxes against those invoices. However, those invoices are yet to be settled by the Government agencies or even county governments. Therefore, KRA continues to impose penalties over penalties. As I said, we seek to help those people through some provisions in the Tax Procedures Bill and the tax laws that will be coming before this House. That is what I am saying, without anticipating debate. I am just trying to move quickly. Clause 8 of the Bill contains very critical provisions for the Cabinet Secretary to establish and compose the Inter-agency Transitional Committee to review all fees and charges that are imposed by county governments prior to the commencement of the Act. The Bill proposes a five-member committee consisting of representatives from the National Treasury, the Commission on Revenue Allocation, the Inter- governmental Relations Technical Committee and the KRA. The committee's role shall be to review taxes, charges and fees that are imposed by a concerned county. Again, I appreciate that Parliament may have delayed enacting legislation that would create the process we are seeking to create to regulate how we impose taxes at both levels of government. As I was giving examples, it may happen that there are county governments across the country that may have imposed certain levies, fees and taxes that may jeopardise our national interests. To cure that for those that may have been imposed ahead of the enactment of this Bill, we are saying that we will create an Inter-agency Transitional Committee to be appointed by the Cabinet Secretary. We will have representation from the agencies and institutions that I have mentioned. They include the Inter-governmental Technical Relations Committee to review all those that had been done before to make sure they align with the greater national goals and interests. In summary, let me not belabour this point because this is a very self-explanatory Bill. The Bill is very important. I urge all Members to support it. I know it concerns our county governments. Therefore, it will be going to the other House. Even as the Bill finds its way to the other House, I expect them to pass it in the greater interest of both our counties and the national Government, so that we can create that complementary role of the two levels of government, not only to impose taxes, but also to ensure that the taxes imposed at the national Government level are not duplicated at the local level through the imposition of taxes, levies and fees by our county governments. Equally, so that certain fees, levies and licenses our county governments are imposing at the county level are not duplicated when we pass our tax and finance laws. This is to avoid elements of double taxation."
}