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{
    "id": 463632,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/463632/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 197,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Omulele",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2145,
        "legal_name": "Christopher Omulele",
        "slug": "christopher-omulele"
    },
    "content": "Thank you, hon. Speaker for giving me this opportunity. For a long time, we have had a situation where taxpayers have been subjected to decisions by officers of the taxing body in this country and we have not had a clear way to go when they feel their rights have been infringed. We have had a situation where commissioners, especially the Commissioner in charge of Customs, have made very drastic assessments with regard to taxpayers. We have had situations where people who otherwise think that they have paid their taxes and met their tax liabilities get assessments that have actually send them to their early graves. Some of the figures that have been set out in those tax assessment reports by the officers from KRA have been impossible to stomach. I know for a fact that the Commissioner of Customs wakes up one morning and writes to you a very brief letter - probably one page - telling you that you have tax liabilities in regard to customs in excess of Kshs500 million, Kshs2 billion and Kshs3 billion. Those kinds of letters have been sent to people who have up to that moment thought that they had met their tax liabilities. For a long time, those people have had to actually meet those liabilities or, otherwise, face the vagaries of trying to get justice through the regular courts. In the regular courts or the High Court as it were, the real risk to those people is that we have not had judges who have been well trained in matters of tax. Sometimes, when those judges are confronted by those kinds of figures, they take the route that, for the tax authority to come up with that assessment, then it must have had some reason to do so. They have been very reluctant to assist people who have approached the courts in this regard. Those are Kenyans who have suffered quite a bit and they have had their businesses closed. A case that comes to my mind immediately is like the one of Al Motors where the tax liability was assessed to be in excess of Kshs2 billion and when they went to court, they were denied a stay and the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) proceeded to issue an agency notice which in effect brought that company to its knees and to closure."
}