Michael Vincents

[Michael Vincents @N_W_G1]

@KenyaPower_Care no power in Langata meter number 04214983654. Since yesterday unfortunately

[Michael Vincents @N_W_G1]

@denkm7 KRA needs to rethink this bank statements approach.

[Michael Vincents @N_W_G1]

@wh1zzyouttahere RIP @Jumuiyan he'd have made a fire tweet on this topic

[Michael Vincents @N_W_G1]

@ntvkenya TAT chairperson is former IEBC chairman's family spokesman?

[Wamutahi @Son_of_Laikipia]

Rasna Warah has rested, she was one of us, she stood for what is right, fought for justice & good governance. May she go in peace ❤️.

[Mwango Capital @MwangoCapital]

.@DavidNdii on expanding the tax base:

3.1M people paying PAYE contributed ~KES 495B last year. Meanwhile, around 16M, formally self-employed individuals paid only about KES 15B. The latter should be paying around KES 500B.

[Julians Amboko @AmbokoJH]

I said yesterday that with the combined 7th & 8th Reviews disbursement having come short of target by some Kes 34.3 billion, we should see GOK revive the discussion around salvaging Finance Bill 2024 revenue raising measures (see quoted tweet).

Well, here we are with a:

1. Tax Laws (Amendment) Bill 2024
2. Tax Procedures (Amendment) Bill 2024
3. Public Finance (Amendment) Bills

Musings on 14 things I think we should all take note of:

1. First, unlike in the past we are now seeing the Treasury front loading an explainer to the public before the bills are tabled in Parliament. That looks like a lesson from the Finance Bill 2024 protests
2. It looks like GOK has now abandoned the earlier approach of piecemeal amendments to salvage Finance Bill 2024, we clearly now have an omnibus Bill
3. The proposal to amend the Income Tax Act & widen the definition of the Digital Market place to rope in food delivery, ride hailing, freelance work is coming back. Many will get caught here
4. The proposal to introduce Sec12G to the Income Tax Act providing for Minimum Top Up Tax is back. The rate is still at 15.0% as proposed in Finance Bill 2024. Multinationals do take note
5. The proposal to make SHIF contributions a deductible allowance is back. Also, contributions to a post-retirement medical cover to be deductible up yo Kes 15,000.
6. The bump up of pension contribution that is deemed deductible from Kes 24,000 to Kes 30,000 is back. However, the silence on switching the pension regime from exempt-exempt-tax to exempt-exempt-exempt seems to have gone, or did I miss it?
7. The VAT apportionment formula is revised as was proposed in Finance Bill 2024. The 90/10 ratio is going. Many will get caught
8. The 2023/24 Tax Amnesty Programme is being extended to June 2025. As I have said before, the issue here isn't about extending the amnesty, the issue is revising the base year that is being considered. Why not shift it to Dec 2023 from Dec 2022?
9. Railway Development Levy is going up from 1.5% to 2.5%
10. You recall that amendment to the Tax Procedures Act to make a KRA PIN mandatory for Kenyans working remotely outside the country? It's coming back friends
11. The explainer is eerily silent on eTIMS. Looks like the Finance Bill 3rd Reading proposal to introduce a Kes 1.0M annual turnover threshold has been done away with. Also, shouldn't we be talking about an amendment to Sec16(c) of the Income Tax Act on matters eTIMS?
12. That radical clean up of the 1st & 2nd Schedules of the VAT Act is indeed coming. We shall be seeing some serious changes on VAT exempt & VAT zero rating status
13. The introduction of Withholding Tax on goods supplied to public entities is back as proposed in Finance Bill 2024
14. The repeal of Digital Services in favour of Significant Economic Presence Tax is back. The explainer is however silent of where the deemed turnover will play. Is it 20.0% per initial Finance Bill 2024? Is it 10.0% per age post-3rd Reading Finance Bill?

Happy reading...Public participation on this post-Supreme Court Judgement on Finance Act 2023 (which is really a guide book on public participation) will make for an interesting exercise

[The Tax Lawyer® @wakili_dennis]

Ladies and gentlemen, the Finance Bill 2024 is fully back through the Tax Laws (Amendment) Bill 2024 and the tax Procedures (Amendment Bill) 2024.

[THE SUPREME COURT OF KENYA @THE_SCOK]

The Supreme Court will on Tuesday, 29 October, 2024 at 4:00pm deliver Judgment via email in Petition E031 of 2024 as consolidated with E032 and E033 of 2024,
Once delivered a link and a media summary will be uploaded on our Website https://t.co/iF3xnTakFe and on this handle.

[The Tax Lawyer® @wakili_dennis]

The Social Health Authority (SHA) has issued a notice to employers providing clarification on SHIF contributions:

1. Meaning of Gross Salary or Wage: Means income from salaried employment including basic salary and allowances paid to an employee on a regular (monthly) basis as a salary or wage. This means that one-off payments such as bonuses would not be subject to SHIF deductions.

2. Whether SHIF contributions qualify for tax relief: SHA is of the view that SHIF contributions should qualify for insurance relief but advise employers to reach out to KRA for concurrence on this.

Under Section 31 (1)(c)(v) of the Income Tax Act, a health policy whose term commences on or after 1 January 2007 or a contribution made to the National Hospital Insurance Fund, qualify for insurance relief. It can be argued that SHIF, being a health insurance policy, should qualify for insurance relief despite not being specifically stated in the Income Tax Act. We wait to see a formal communication from KRA on this.

3. Employer matching contributions: Employers are not required to match the SHIF contributions of their employees.

[Julians Amboko @AmbokoJH]

Very important notice coming from the Communication Authority of Kenya around mobile devices & tax compliance effective Jan 1st, 2025.

Musings:

· To make sense of this, you need to go back to March 2023 when KRA issued the notice around cargo de-consolidation & the shift from Kes 200/kg to the per transaction charges (see quoted 🧵for an explainer)
· Remember the challenge being solved here was the fact that of when cargo consolidation happens, goods with diverse import duty rates can be bundled together & revenue slippage happens
· You may also remember the stockouts of smart phones in the market that followed this shift. Traders decried the switch, some opted to forget about the cargo altogether
· In my inference, the notice from the Communication Authority of Kenya is simply a step up on this measure
· Essentially, what this means is that whereas in the first phase GOK targeted importers through cargo de-consolidation, it is now widening its reach to target local assemblers of phones, retailers & wholesalers as well as mobile network operators
· What this means is that come Jan 1st, 2025, if there's any device in this market that is found to be non-compliant from a duty/tax standpoint, the retailer/wholesaler has questions to answer; in the case of a locally assembled device, the assembler has questions to answer & finally the mobile network operator also has questions to answer
· The part of mobile network operators is important. My inference is that when you buy a sim card, part of the sim registration exercise will be demanding evidence that the device onto which it's being inserted be tax compliant. This will get interesting
· Question, what will happen in the case of devices already loaded with sims yet are non-compliant from a tax standpoint? Are we looking at switch off?

[Michael Vincents @N_W_G1]

@DonBlunts Yes, there is. By Taika Waititi

[Michael Vincents @N_W_G1]

@wakili_dennis Counsel. Did they explain why iTax needs an overhaul? It seems to be working just fine

[Dr Branice Munyasa @Branicemercy]

I went back when I was broke as a church mouse without a salary

Nextcaredental had drained every dime from me .

It’s started with let me just apply if I get accepted and I still don’t have money I will defer , then I got accepted.

I then said let me just accept this offer and apply for a scholarship if I don’t get it I will defer .

Then I got the scholarship and I had no further excuses but to start the program 😅

The headache was then how do I support myself and siblings as self sponsored student doing an unpaid 5 year residency?

Then again I had set up @NEXTCAREDENTAL for this specific reason a year earlier so all I had to do was to keep stepping forward in Faith
4 years of stepping later ni God maze 🙏

[Tiffany C. Li @tiffanycli]

People get the wrong idea when they hear I’m a lawyer.

Can I negotiate your job contract? No.

Can I sue someone for you? Also no.

Can I defend you in a criminal trial? Definitely not.

But … I can review a privacy policy for you, if that helps?

[Joshua Malidzo Nyawa @joshuamalidzo]

#hotoffthebench
COA has stayed the High Court SHIF decision that declared the SHIF act as unconstitutional pending hearing the appeal by the CS for Health.

[Carl Zha @CarlZha]

10,000 drones display to celebrate 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China

[David Ndii @DavidNdii]

Kenya’s political and economic problem in one picture. Unless and until we clear this deck entirely, we are going Greece, Argentina, Zambia route. And please don’t remind me that I told you so in 2023.

[🇰🇪 Foi @_Foi_T]

From paying 30k per semester to paying 270K.
This is a serious issue and we shouldn't accept it. The past 10 years has been filled with my small village celebrating graduation and it seems the next 10 might be a dry one.