Ni Nani?

Court has warned KRA to go for real thieves, not NIL filers. There is a company called Kapwell Enterprises Limited. Their business is not complicated. They sell cargo clearing and forwarding services. When they started, they had no one to show them mashimo. They only had hope and determination. They hit the road. 2013, no deal. 2014, zero deal. 2015, no nothing. Kazi ni kufile tu NIL returns. As the director was busy tarmacking and accumulating tiny stones under his shoe heels, Some crooks had stolen & were busy importing goods using Kapwell’s KRA PIN. In 2018, Kapwell has known mashimo. They are minting real money. KRA notices. They decided to audit. Checking their internal customs system, they discovered that Kapwell’s PIN had imported goods worth 25M in 2013 and 2014. Yet they had filed NIL returns faithfully. KRA went mad. They took the 25M, added a fictitious 20% profit margin, computed income tax, VAT, penalties and interest, and slapped Kapwell with a tax bill of 11M. Next morning at 3am, the director akagurumuka. He reached for his phone to check time. Saw an email notification. Hoping it was a client, he opened it. Bahati mbaya, it was KRA. Delivering the bill. Sleep ended instant. • Lesson 1: usiku wacha simu sitting room. At dawn, without even taking tea, he rushed to KRA to report a system error. Akaambiwa ndugu keti. He was shown mad numbers on the screen. He swore he had never imported such goods. KRA wakamwabia hii utalipa. He ran to the police and reported a case of identity theft. Got an OB number. Took it back to KRA and asked them to investigate who had used his company PIN. He even gave them a list of competitors he suspected. He then served KRA all of his bank statements. They were all zeros for those years. But KRA could not hear any of it. As KRA is doing all this, it is unaware of one dangerous sentence chilling quietly in Kenyan tax law. It reads: • KRA SHALL make inquiries into all tax issues raised by a taxpayer. Make sure to underline the word SHALL. MANDATORY. KRA did not investigate. Their position was: • PIN ni yako. 11M ni yako. Lipa. Frustrated, he ran to court. The Tribunal asked KRA: Where is your investigation report? - KRA said hakuna. Tribunal invoked the one dangerous sentence. You still remember it? • KRA SHALL make inquiries. Tribunal ruled that the word SHALL is MANDATORY. Tribunal concluded Kapwell was a victim of identity theft. 11M tax was set aside. You would think that is the end. Noo. KRA retreated to Times Tower swearing: 11M haiwezi enda hivo. Aje? They appealed to the High Court. In court, Kapwell was asked: Why don’t you want to pay tax under your PIN ndugu? He responded: My lord, I have no problem paying taxes. But not for goods I never bought, never touched, and never sold. The good judge asked him: What do you mean? He responded: My Lord, if you owe your landlord 100K. You take the 100k bundle to his office and hand it to him. As he starts counting, a thief storms in, orders everyone down, and in the confusion the landlord throws the money back at you. The thief grabs it and disappears. Have you paid rent or not? The court went silent. The judge asked him: Kapwell what are you saying? He replied: My Lord, who should the landlord pursue for the money? You the tenant or the thief? Judge removed his spectacles. Paused. Then sided with Kapwell. The 11M tax was set aside. KRA wakaambiwa waende watafute wezi wawalipe. Case closed. Lesson 2. • KRA cannot tax a victim of identity theft. • KRA must go for the real beneficiary thief.

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What's actually healthy despite most people thinking it's not?