Mkulima Moments: Shock as taxman now trains his guns on me

The young farmer millionaire status highlighted by the agricultural magazine has brought positive and negative tidings in equal measure.

On the positive side, my status as an eligible bachelor has improved tremendously going by the comments I received after Tesh shared my feature on Facebook.

I was almost spoiled for choice until Wandia, the love of my heart, wrote a message.

“I am impressed by your work,” read the message followed by several  portraits of red lips and a heart. “I Dream of the time your status will change! he! he! he!” she added. I skipped a beat. “What does she mean?” I asked myself quietly.

I thought the statement had broken some ice and a reconciliation was now possible after the failed date.

Since the publication of the story, Mkulima Mixed farm’s popularity  has also shot up.  I have contemplated re-organising the farm and possibly increasing the training charges.

I have also thought of increasing farm visits from one to two in a week. Adenya, my city friend, is now our  marketing  and public relations consultant, since most of the visitors are from Nairobi.

He has actively been offering advice on how to use different communication skills depending on our audience during farm visits.

A few  days later, I explained to Adenya  that there are two gentlemen who are very keen on visiting Mkulima Mixed farm as per the description in the paper.

“These must be NGOs interested in working with you,” Adenya said with excitement before I could describe more.

“Good! Those are now the people you should target,” he said  excitedly.

“You are now above the farm visits,” he encouraged. You need to have the NGO language to attract them,” he added.

”What do you mean?” I inquired.

“NGOs have their language,” he advised.

ENTERPRISE TO WATCH

Adenya continued to give hints of some of the key words and phrases to use in the NGO world. Giving examples, he advised me to use words like milestones, institutional capacity , deficiencies, sustainability indicators, stakeholder dialogue, a comprehensive learning apparatus, poor resource small scale farmers, vulnerable communities, innovations, community of practice,  climate change, cross-cutting project design and preparation Action Plans.

The two gentleman kept time as per our agreement. They arrived by 2 pm accompanied by Wakageorge who saw it wise  to accompany them instead of merely directing them. And because they had a white car, it was also an opportunity for  a free ride, away from the smoky Check Point Hotel.

Mzee Jeremiah who also noticed the big 4x4 car came thinking there were goodies especially now the politicians are busy visiting the people of influence in the village.

“Mkulima, we were impressed by your agriculture enterprise that is generating a huge income,” Julius said after  introducing  himself and his colleague  William.

“According  to the feature, you said you earn over a million Kenya shillings,”

“Kung’ang’ana tu kiasi,” I said shyly using the common phrase for business people who never acknowledge they are doing well.

The two gentlemen were not in a hurry. I was also very keen in using Adenya’s communication guidelines to take them through Mkulima Mixed farm enterprise that has made me a millionaire.

They were keen on the income generation and records of the farm.

Though some records were missing my narrative was convincing that Mkulima Mixed Farm was an enterprise to watch and ready to partner with them in transforming agriculture to benefit the poor resourceful smallholder farmers.

“Do you have itax? William asked.

“No we use boda boda up to Mashambani” I answered. I thought he had asked if I used a taxi from the farm before he explained further.

“No. We are asking whether you usually pay tax,” Julius emphasised.

SWEAT RUNNING DOWN MY CHEEKS

I was tongue tied.

“We are from Kenya Revenue Authority and we are following up on whether you pay tax with your commercial farming,” Julius continued.

When he mentioned tax returns Mzee Jeremiah and Wakageorge left giving various reasons.

Mzee Jeremiah said he was the one preaching that day although he rarely goes to church. Wakageorge said it was time to pick his kids from the academy knowing very well no academy exists at Mashambani. I was left alone to deal with the tax men.

The last time I tried filing the returns the cyber just decided to give up.

“Do you know Section 15(7) of the Income Tax Law allows taxation of income from agricultural proceeds?” he asked.

“No. I am not aware though I heard farmers need to pay tax recently,” I answered shaking.

“You know the million the media talked about was just a turnover and not an income,” I tried to explain.

“It is okay, We can get the income from your records,” William, the more stern faced said.

You could see thin sweat running down my cheeks. “We want you to come to our offices in Nairobi tomorrow. You must pay tax before this week ends. Otherwise, we shall take legal action,” Julius said before leaving.

I am dumbfounded because the last time I made a million shillings was two years ago. And that was not profit but one lump sum sale of my pigs.