Politics
Draft: President and MPs must pay taxes
In Summary
- Prime minister, vice president, military top brass and judges also to give their dues
The tax-free, all-expenses-paid lifestyles of the president, vice-president, prime minister and MPs will be history if the draft constitution becomes law.
The new constitution makes it illegal to exempt any State officer from paying taxes.
MPs, who only pay taxes on their salaries — which stand at Sh200,000 — have fought off attempts to tax their allowances, which push their monthly earnings to at least Sh850,000.
Protected by Act
They are protected by the National Assembly Remuneration Act while the Constitutional Office Holders Remuneration Act gives judges and other holders of such positions a tax-free existence.
However, the harmonised draft constitution overrides the two laws and requires everyone to pay taxes.
“No law may exclude or authorise the exclusion of a State officer from payment of tax by the reason of the office held by the State officer; or the nature of the work of the State officer,” the draft says.
To clear doubts over its intentions, the draft goes ahead to define a State officer to include the president, VP, prime minister, ministers, assistant ministers and MPs.
The list of constitutional office holders include the Attorney General, judges, the deputy director of prosecutions and members of constitutional commissions.
The Committee of Experts who crafted the draft have proposed to cast wider the tax nets by bringing on board representatives of the devolved governments — at the regional and county levels. This means that regional governors, heads of counties and members of their assemblies will be required to pay taxes.
The Chief of General Staff and commanders of the Army, Air Force and the Navy and senior military officers will also pay taxes.
Currently, a wide array of top public officials is exempt from taxes, even though the holders earn good salaries. The holders are also allowed to import luxury cars duty-free.
MPs in particular have made public their disgust at attempts to tax their allowances and they shot down proposals by the then Finance minister Amos Kimunya in the 2008/2009 budget.
The motion was defeated with MPs accusing Mr Kimunya of introducing populist ideas to create conflict between the electorate and lawmakers.
Most of those opposed to taxation of their allowances argued the nature of the work, which includes fund-raising for funerals, school fees, hospital bills and development projects, made it difficult to comply with the tax proposal.
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We also need laws that make it clear that public service is not the same as self service. Tighten rules on conflicts of interest for the state’s legislators — creating, for instance, an independent ethics panel to monitor the Legislature. It would forbid the lawmakers from using public resources to enhance their private businesses, even indirectly. Serious ethics legislation should also require legislators to declare, publicly and clearly, where they get their private money. To oversee these changes, the Legislature should set up an independent commission to monitor legislative behavior.
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they should pay backtaxes too,when kra was cracking down on tax defaulters many businesses were forced to close,how many people lost their hard earned money and how many were left jobless,we need a constitution that takes care of the hard working kenyans
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Here we go again! So, u tell me, should these people elect our Chief Executive? With all the objections they have had about their salaries being taxed? They shot down Kimunya and all bloggers were happy about it!! Good grief me, kenyans need the East African Community like yesterday!!
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