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{
    "id": 579023,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/579023/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 104,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. Langat",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 384,
        "legal_name": "Benjamin Kipkirui Langat",
        "slug": "benjamin-langat"
    },
    "content": "Hon. Speaker, I beg to move that the Finance Bill be now read a Second Time. First of all, I want to thank my colleagues in the Departmental Committee on Finance, Planning and Trade for the Sittings we have had to discuss the Finance Bill. As the House may recall, this Bill was submitted to Parliament on 11th June 2015 during the occasion of the presentation of the Fiscal Year 2015/2016 highlights of the Annual Estimates. The Bill has a timeline of three months from the date of approval of the Appropriations Bill in which Parliament must approve it. You can easily look at it and see that time is almost expiring. The Finance Bill is enacted every year to update or bring the current tax and financial sector laws up to speed considering the challenges which have been experienced by the implementers of the financial sector laws. This is one of the annual Bills that we normally pass in this House. The present Bill has made proposals to amend three major laws. One is the Value Added Tax (VAT) Act, 2013, the Income Tax Act, and Miscellaneous Amendments, that is, amendments touching on various financial sector laws. This Bill mainly touches on the Insurance Act and the Banking Act with respect to capital requirements. I want to inform the House that Part I of the Bill deals with VAT. Under the VAT proposals, the Bill seeks to bring - under exemptions and zero rating - some of the items. It also seeks to address some of the implementation issues. Before I even go to exemptions, the Bill has brought in the concept of duty free shops, where it seeks to zero-rate all the sales under the duty free shops in our airports. The definition of duty free shop has been given under Clause 2 in order to bring the zero-rating of the sales at the duty free shops. Specifically, Clause 4 of the Bill intends to amend Section 25(a) of the VAT Act to allow the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to appoint other agents other than Ministries, Departments and agencies (MDAs), to withhold 6 per cent of VAT payable at the time of paying for the supplies and remit to the Authority. In the Finance Bill of last year this House approved a proposal that when the Government agencies are paying suppliers, they do not pay all the VAT to the supplier. They withhold 6 per cent of that VAT. That time we restricted that withholding to Government agencies, but this Bill seeks to include other agencies that can also withhold the 6 per cent. Initially they used to withhold 16 per cent, but this Bill says that KRA can, for example, appoint Kenya Breweries to be part of the agencies to withhold 6 per cent of VAT and remit it to KRA. In addition to resolving the issue of refunds, it also assists in knowing which payers have received payments with VAT and it is possible to tell those who are supposed to file returns to KRA because they have already been submitted by the person who withheld the VAT. It will The electronic version of the Official Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor."
}