National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has hinted at new taxes being introduced in the Finance Bill 2025.
Speaking during an interview on Friday April 18, Mbadi noted that the new taxes will not be harmful to Kenyans and will be aimed to protect businesses.
The Treasury CS emphasized that he does not expect the Finance Bill 2025 to reduce the purchasing power of Kenyans.
“New taxes may be there, but not taxes that will be harmful. You know, you could have taxes that promote businesses. What I don’t expect to be there is to reduce the purchasing power of our citizens,” said Mbadi.
He added, “Kenyans have complained that in 2023, they lost quite especially in indirect taxation, in pay as you earn, there were some adjustments for top earners getting above Ksh 500,000 got their salary reduced because the tax rates increased. Everybody also had the housing levy and the Social Health Insurance Fund."
Read More
At the same time, CS Mbadi highlighted that the National Treasury projects a budget of Ksh4.2 trillion for the financial year 2025-2026.
He pointed out that out of the KSH 4.2 trillion budget, ordinary revenue will generate Ksh2.8 trillion
“Out of that, we project to finance it through ordinary revenue of Ksh2.8 trillion. This has been revised downwards. In the previous financial year, when we projected the 2025-2026 financial year, we were looking at about Ksh3.1 trillion, but the reality has kicked in and we are not seeing the possibility of collecting that,” Mbadi remarked.
The Treasury CS also said that the government projects to collect Ksh550 billion from ministerial A-in-A and receive external grants of Ksh46 billion.
“External financing that we have already negotiated is Ksh 156 billion. That leaves us with around 684 billion, which should be either financed through domestic borrowing, but it might not be the case because we have not negotiated with the IMF,” Mbadi added.
