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"id": 245051,
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"speaker_name": "Mr. Maore",
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"legal_name": "Richard Maoka Maore",
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"content": "Mr. Chairman, Sir, I wanted to say a few words about these taxation measures. We have this history of Income Tax whereby a lot of Kenyans were having difficulties filling the Income Tax declaration forms. The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) asked tenants to provide the Personal Identification Numbers (PIN) of their landlords. I think this measure alone will reduce the amount of taxes that the Minister is going to collect as well as infringing on the privacy of the PINs of the landlords. As we all know, the PIN is not a public document. It is private and personal. So, I do not know if the Minister intends to publish all our PINs so that he can be able to tell who is a landlord so that he can be accessible to us. Mr. Chairman, Sir, the other issue is that one of diesel. Some people own posho mills, tractors or some other items which do not actually use the roads. While I support that taxation measure myself, the Minister should devise a method of a refund system for those people who use tractors for ploughing, harvesting or crushing maize. We need a system whereby, after you have paid for the diesel, you are able to obtain a refund from the KRA. Mr. Chairman, Sir, the other issue which was raised by the Minister was the Capital Gains Tax (CGT). If the Minister has been watching other Ministers for Finance when they read their 1790 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES July 4, 2006 budgets and also follow politics, he should know that, for example, in the USA, elections are won or lost over that topic alone. If you can remember the issue of the Republicans and Democrats whereby people feared the Democrats because they were likely to raise the CGT and the Republicans could be trusted because they will maintain or lower it. We want to plead with the Minister to be content with the Stamp Duty that Kenyans pay at the moment instead of introducing another form of taxation measure under the guise of the CGT. There will be massive harassment of property owners and a lot of rich people within the departments that collect this tax, because they have to either underpay or undercut others. We hope that was a dream and that he will not implement it. Mr. Chairman, Sir, the other issue is that of the retirement benefits. The Minister said that he only wants to allow those people who are emigrating from Kenya to other countries and without any intention of returning to reside in Kenya to access their retirement benefits. Given the fact that the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), which falls under the Ministry of Planning and National Development docket, is able to document the life expectancy of a Kenyan; the life expectancy of a Kenyan is not 55 years, I would plead that we peg the benefit to retirement to life expectancy of Kenyans and not the one that we put in our labour unions and other statutory requirements. Mr. Chairman, Sir, very soon, we are going to require that we follow the Permanent Secretary, Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of Public Service, Amb. Muthaura, by saying that the retirement age should be 60 years. So, when we make 60 years to be the retirement age, very few people will be able to enjoy their retirement benefits or pension. Mr. Chairman, Sir, the Minister also raised the issue of making donations to political parties or charitable organizations or foundations and schools tax deductible. This is a very, very noble idea. But with the kind of Government we have without any computerization of any level, this issue is subject to abuse. Actually, it is like giving a monkey a gun in the middle of a crowd. You do not know which direction it will shoot. We are not yet ready to have donations to political parties tax deductible. Mr. Chairman, Sir, let us devise a mechanism whereby the Government can support political parties and have a structured forum. I will give a quick example. If we have NARC-Kenya represented in Parliament, and the original NARC, which is pretending to govern, four out of the 35 Ministers and Assistant Ministers will be from the Opposition. Now, when they get Kshs1 million, will they say: \"Four per cent of the Kshs1 million should go to KANU\"? Again, NARC-Kenya happens to be having favour, instead of the actual NARC. When they get Kshs1 million, should it go to the original NARC or to NARC-Kenya, which seems to be sapping life from the original NARC? This is quite a messy situation that the Minister should go back and review, though the idea is very good. We want a situation whereby, when people donate money to churches, schools and foundations, tax is deductible, but not the whole of it. In the United States of America, for example, if you donate US$1 million to a church, you cannot have US$1 million deducted from your charity. There is a minimum and a maximum amount of money deductible. There is a certain percentage of that full donation which you are supposed to ask as entitlement of tax deductible. So, the Minister is actually venturing into very dangerous territory, whereby we are going to have ruling parties turning into extortionists to businessmen, investors and everybody else. It will become like KANU in 1986, when you could not get service from a public office unless you had bought the KANU membership card. So, we want this very well thought out and structured. It is too early to introduce this initiative because the systems that we have today are not mature enough to even tell who is a charitable organisation. We know where the schools and the foundations are. We also know where many of the churches are, but there are too many of these institutions. We July 4, 2006 PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES 1791 need to have a proper mechanism put in place so that we can know who is a beneficiary, a looter and where the extortion will end. With those few remarks, I beg to support."
}