By Leonard Wanyama
Source: getimg.ai
One question which Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) officers are not keen to answer is whether the deployment of Revenue Service Assistants (RSAs) has been a success or not. Judicial nullification of 1,406 recruitments based on the unconstitutionality of tribal bias in their hiring has also not helped matters much. Kenya needs to ensure greater tax compliance to achieve its service delivery demands and debt obligations without going into default. KRA must, therefore, abandon the securitised approach to revenue collection and consider historical grievances plus sociological concerns in its implementation. Research by the East African Tax and Governance Network (EATGN) has clearly pointed out that at a very basic level noncompliance is driven by the fact that government offers poor service delivery despite payment of requested taxes.
Consequently, a tax orientation that immediately criminalizes noncompliance is not beneficial because tax evasion will continue if government does not keep its end of the bargain to provide public goods and services once taxes are collected. Additionally, public scepticism -and in certain instances outright rejection of the RSAs- could stem from past negative experiences that are deeply embedded in the national psyche, for example, abuses by officers under the former provincial administration like Chiefs who harassed citizens in their homes. Secondly, the implementation problem when looking at the targeted issue of taxing the informal economy, lies in understanding it only as a compliance issue alone and not a broader public finance conundrum related to the trust deficit in so far as the erosion of the Kenyan social contract is concerned. Narrow understanding of how to tax the informal sector therefore limits the definitions, and functions of localised tax officers needed to help boost domestic revenue mobilization because it is unresponsive to existing concerns.
Government should therefore change its interpretation of what a tax agent is beyond an officer who facilitates compliance support to include civic education and dispute resolution services. This will open the role beyond accountants and lawyers to sociologists, anthropologists, historians, political scientists, or even teachers who can assist in improving tax rights awareness needed to convince the public to pay taxes. In that sense, RSAs will therefore not simply be assistants but full Revenue Service Agents who are officers in three strands comprising compliance support officers; civic education officers; and dispute resolution officers. Expanding the meaning of what it means to be a tax agent will respectively help citizens to prepare and submit tax returns better, inform the public on specific tax measures or advise, plus offer legal support to taxpayers in the event of grievances. Boots on the ground approaches will therefore be replaced with human rights-based principles in ensuring empowerment of businesses by informing through training taxpayers on their rights and responsibilities. Legislation will be properly publicised, licensed tax agents will be easily accessible and citizens will be more enlightened as to how to address tax disputes when they arise. Such interactions will therefore build the public confidence needed in voluntary tax compliance.
Politically the issue of RSAs, as it stands now, should not simply be a question of ‘jobs for the boys and gals’ but through proper parliamentary legislation and subsequent regulations on procedures the proper conduct of tax agents will be established. Ultimately, rethinking the current inclination to police citizens at every corner with security officers introduces fairness in tax collection because at the very core Kenyan believe in the prospects for self sufficiency by voluntarily carrying out their duty to pay taxes. However, going by the reaction of avocado farmers, if the KRA continues its deployment of the paramilitary RSAs it will soon become clear that this will be a new barrier to effective citizen participation in taxation especially when facing high revenue collection targets.
The author is Regional Coordinator of the East African tax and Governance Network (EATGN). Follow on X @lennwanyama.
