The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Commissioner-General Githii Mburu has released a statement following reports that it has launched a crackdown for wealthy Kenyans displaying lavish lifestyles on social media, but paying little or no taxes for what they own.
Speaking during an earlier interview with Business Daily, Mburu noted that the agency has assigned a number of officers to spend time to social media scouting for wealthy persons whose tax records are not in line with what they showcase online.
Some of the social media sites KRA is keen on infiltrating include; Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook where socialites and other influential personalities always share private details of their lives.
"In the social media, we have some people posting some nice things. You would see some posting nice houses, cars, taking their families to nice places and so on. Here, we are not sleeping, when we see those, we see taxes.
"We have our officers looking, they have gadgets. They key in very quickly (the number plate) to check. We are working exceptionally hard," the KRA boss told the publication.
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File image of KRA Commissioner-General Githii Mburu. [Photo: Courtesy]
Shortly after the KRA boss’ remarks were publicized, the story went viral across the country with some netizens branding at a fight against socialites and soft-life’ ambassadors.
However, in a statement, Mburu defended the move noting that it is constitutional and meant to streamline the operations of the taxman.
“Thank you Kenyans for the great engaging discussions. Utilizing modern technologies is nested in page 26 of the KRA 8th Corporate plan. The aim is to reduce the overall cost of collecting while improving the quality of operations and services that we provide to you the taxpayers.
“This is of course in line with other initiatives such as cleaning our taxpayer database, utilizing data analytics, and providing simplified online services,” he tweeted.
