The government has addressed growing public concerns over the proposal in the Finance Bill 2025 that aims to give the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) access to Kenyans’ financial data.
The Bill proposes to repeal Section 59A(1B) of the Tax Procedures Act, which currently bars KRA from demanding or collecting trade secrets or personal customer data from individuals or businesses without a court order.
During a media engagement hosted by the National Treasury on Thursday, May 15, KRA’s digital tax official Nickson Omondi explained that the intention behind the proposal is to clamp down on tax evasion, comparing it to how taxation of non-residents is done.
Omondi explained that any data access will be conducted within the framework of the Tax Procedures Act (Section 59) and will be guided by due legal processes.
The Tax Procedures Act (Section 59) gives the Commissioner of KRA the power to establish a data management and reporting system for the submission of electronic documents, including detailed transactional data relating to those documents.
Further, KRA said that the proposal seeks to achieve integration with financial institutions, mainly banks, to gather financial data in the form of transactions relevant to tax compliance.
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E-procurement system to be integrated with KRA
At the same time, Treasury Cabinet Secretary (CS) Mbadi revealed plans to roll out an electronic government procurement platform (e-GP) as part of broader efforts to curb tax evasion, eliminate proxy bidders, and flag firms that inflate their financial credentials to secure government tenders.
The newly developed e-GP system will be integrated with KRA and financial institutions, enabling real-time access to bidders’ financial activity and tax compliance records.
According to the CS, the system will allow tender evaluation committees within Ministries, Departments, Agencies (MDAs), and county governments to view the inflows and outflows of bidding firms’ bank accounts, helping establish the true financial capacity of suppliers.
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In addition to verifying firms’ ability to deliver goods and services, the system will enable procurement officials to flag suspicious financial activity, including signs of money laundering and terrorism financing.
The e-GP system is expected to go live in July 2025, following a pilot phase involving selected state-owned enterprises and three counties.
The linkage with KRA will enable the tax agency to track suppliers earning billions from government contracts who have historically underreported income or avoided taxes, a key move by the ministry towards curbing the misappropriation of public funds.
On the Digital Asset Tax, the National Treasury explained that it is slashing the 3% levy on digital assets trade introduced in 2023 by half to 1.5 per cent in the 2025 Finance Bill.
KRA officials said that a digital asset is anything identifiable that is created and stored digitally and has or provides value, meaning that the tax targets people dealing in cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
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