Taxman pushes ahead with PIN blocking plans

Millions of Kenyans may from Thursday be blocked from accessing critical public services as the taxman moves to punish tax cheats with the termination of personal identification numbers (PINs).

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) maintained in a public notice Tuesday that it would push ahead with a controversial plan to deregister all taxpayers who have not migrated their profiles to the online platform beginning September 1 as part of a wider plan to smoke out tax cheats.

“KRA has noted that there are taxpayers, who have not migrated their PINs into iTax while others, who are already on iTax, are either not filing or are filing nil or no returns,” KRA said Thursday in a public notice.

READ: Millions to miss services as KRA deactivates PINs

“KRA, therefore, notifies the general public that those who have not updated their PINs in iTax should do so by 31 August 2017 and commence filing immediately.”

KRA said taxpayers who are yet to migrate their PIN information to the iTax — KRA’s online tax payment portal — will also be taken out of the system with serious consequences to their businesses.

This impending and unprecedented deregistration of PINs could see millions of Kenyans cut off from making critical transactions that require proof of active registration as a taxpayer.

READ: Lawyers fault KRA plan of deactivating PINs

The transactions that require proof of an active PIN certificate include registration of land titles, approval of development plans, registration, transfer and licensing of motor vehicles, and registration of business names and companies.

Others are underwriting of insurance policies, customs clearing and forwarding, payment of deposits for power connections, supplying goods and services to the State, as well as opening accounts with financial institutions.