Counties team up with KRA to collect property rates
Tax payers queue outside the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) at the National Tax Support Centre in Nairobi on June 30, 2016. County governments are set to partner with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) in the collection of property rates as they seek to plug their revenue shortfalls. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- The KRA said it had started integrating its i-Tax system with county revenue collection systems, which will make it easier for the devolved units to collect the rates without property owners having to visit county offices to make payments.
- Counties have been forced to offer regular penalty amnesties to property rate defaulters in an effort to encourage them to pay up.
County governments are set to partner with the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) in the collection of property rates as they seek to plug their revenue shortfalls.
The devolved units have struggled to enforce compliance in property rate collection, resulting in billions of shillings of unrealised revenue that forces many of them to rely on the national government for the bulk of their budgetary requirements.
The KRA said it had started integrating its i-Tax system with county revenue collection systems, which will make it easier for the devolved units to collect the rates without property owners having to visit county offices to make payments.
Counties have been forced to offer regular penalty amnesties to property rate defaulters in an effort to encourage them to pay up.
Attaching and auctioning the property of defaulters is expensive and time consuming for counties.
Some of the biggest rate defaulters are government departments, with Nairobi, for instance, saying that the national government owes it Sh62 billion in unpaid rates.
