Amos Kimunya

All parliamentary appearances

Entries 1021 to 1030 of 6175.

• 22 Sep 2021 in National Assembly: Thank you, Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker. I beg to move: THAT, the Tax Appeals Tribunal (Amendment) Bill, (National Assembly Bill No.19 of 2021), be now read a Second Time. 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. view
• 22 Sep 2021 in National Assembly: You will recall that on or around 7th November 2020, His Excellency the President in a recorded address while marking the National Taxpayers Day which is around the end of October or the beginning of November, directed the National Treasury and the Attorney-General to review the legal and operational framework of the Tax Appeals Tribunal, the onward appeals to the superior courts, as well as the provisions for the Tax Procedure Court Act to ensure all the various tax disputes are resolved in an efficient manner. view
• 22 Sep 2021 in National Assembly: The product of this request is basically this Bill which has the intention of creating an independent tribunal for speedy, efficient, just determination of tax disputes and accord some rulings that have been passed by the courts. This is because the Constitution does recognise all tribunals as judicial bodies that fall under the Judiciary. At the moment, we have about 976 tax disputes. They could have gone up or down depending on how many have been resolved, how many more have been filed and how many are pending before the tribunal. When you look at this, it is one of ... view
• 22 Sep 2021 in National Assembly: There are about 34 other tribunals in operation ranging from the Co-operatives Tribunal, Rents Tribunal and Business Premises Tribunal, but the Tax Appeals Tribunal seems to be the most active and busiest in terms of workload. This operational challenge has also brought to the fore the fact that it is currently served by part-time members. There is a crammer whether the 976 court cases can be continued sustainably using part-time members of the tribunal who only come as and when they are needed. Obviously, the remuneration structure which was pushed to the tribunal by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRA), ... view
• 22 Sep 2021 in National Assembly: One of the proposals in this review is to have them as full time - and I will come back to this later on. Another of their institutional challenges is the fact that the Tax Appeals Tribunal since its inception, has always been funded by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), which also seconds its staff. Here is a tribunal which is supposed to be providing independent judgements and fairness to a taxpayer who appears before it. They try to do their best, but the fact is that they are funded by KRA. This means there is a perception to a ... view
• 22 Sep 2021 in National Assembly: It does not get better because the appointment of members to the tribunal is also the mandate of the CS the National Treasury, who also is a beneficiary of the work of KRA. He is obviously desirous of optimising the revenue collections by KRA. Again, as I said, within the framework of our new Constitution, Article 169 basically says that tribunals should be within the jurisdiction of subordinate courts and supervised by the Judicial Service Commission (JSC). Our Tax Tribunal is put under the jurisdiction of the National Treasury, which is obviously against the Constitution. To remedy part of this, ... view
• 22 Sep 2021 in National Assembly: is very good at appointing lawyers but tax matters are not just about the tax law. They are also about the mechanics of taxation. Typically, any tax appeals tribunal will have lawyers, accountants, economists and different types of people who will sit to arbitrate and hear cases. view
• 22 Sep 2021 in National Assembly: So, it becomes necessary to have a panel to interview and get from among the different professionals members to constitute the tribunal. This makes a lot of sense because we avoid the feeling that the person appointing has only picked people that he or she like, love, play golf or socialise with. This will be through a transparent system and even competitive if you like. I do not want to belabour the point on how the selection will be done because it is contained in the Bill, complete with a time line. The bottom line is once this panel has ... view
• 22 Sep 2021 in National Assembly: Going to the composition of the tribunal, the Bill proposes to oblige the JSC and the selection panel, to ensure the nominees to the tribunal reflect the interest of all sections of society and comply with Articles 10 and 27 of the Constitution, which espouses our national values, principles of governance, equal opportunities for persons with disabilities, marginalised communities and issues about gender. They are also part of the requirements within the Bill. view
• 22 Sep 2021 in National Assembly: The Bill also seeks to amend the current Section 7 of the Act, in relation to the secretary of the tribunal, by replacing the CS who is the appointing authority and transferring that responsibility to the Public Service Commission (PSC). I know there are some issues with this because this is a tribunal under the JSC. The thinking was that the Public Service Commission (PSC) should be the one appointing the Authority. I am aware that the Chair of the Departmental Committee on Finance and National Planning and her Committee have heard representations from various bodies and there could well ... view