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{
    "id": 463635,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/463635/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 200,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Omulele",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 2145,
        "legal_name": "Christopher Omulele",
        "slug": "christopher-omulele"
    },
    "content": "certainty that those are the tax expectations that will follow you if you engage in any one business or if you wish to act for any person in regard to a tax matter. They have provided for the appointment of tax agents so that we are developing professionalism in matters of tax. So, for that reason, I am happy because we have, for a long time in this country, not had a special profession that deals with tax. Some of our young men and women who are taking university degrees in economics will have an opportunity now to specifically deal with tax matters. Hon. Speaker, for a long time, we have had tax collection in this country and all of us are here today because we are beneficiaries of the taxes that have been collected by the tax collecting bodies and agencies under KRA. However, we have for a long time assumed that all matters are good and we have not had a specific branch to deal with the infringements that occur in the course of collection of those taxes. So, for this reason, I am very happy and I think this is a timely Bill that we must all support. Hon. Speaker, KRA and the Commissioners appointed under the KRA Act specifically under the customs branch of the KRA--- For a long time, we have had complaints arising from the manner they deal with members of the Kenyan taxpaying citizens of this country. We have had situations where a tax collector or a revenue officer for that matter who is really the edge of the axe that meets with the wood that is the taxpaying Kenyan makes a decision that is informed by matters that are extraneous to the matter that is at hand on the way to collect the tax and because members of the Kenyan society have not had a law which guides them on how to raise complaints, they have had to pay taxes that they really should not have paid. For this reason, those officers have wielded what we in the legal profession know as the “Sword of Damocles” over the people who pay tax and they have operated like imperial officers because their decisions have not been open to challenge. However, with this law that we are proposing to pass through this House, those members of our society who really make this country tick will have an opportunity to know exactly what is it that they are expected to do and in the event that they feel that they are not treated well by the tax collection agents and the revenue officers of KRA, they will be able to approach this body which is clearly independent of KRA. Hon. Speaker, Sir, as much as we had a semblance of an appeals body that has been envisaged and has been operating---"
}