Tax Reform
30
June
Few things remind me of mind numbing redundancy than the requirement of the Kenya Revenue Authority that all tax payers submit their written returns. Countless man hours are wasted by taxpayers, accountants all around Kenya and KRA employees to collect data that they already bloody have. Mind numbing repetitive manual work at unnecessary cost to the taxpayer.
As I vented my spleen on this matter the other day on my fourth attempt at filling my returns, friends and relatives backed away to a safe distance and I let slip the dogs of war.
What is my problem with the process?
- COMPLETELY redundant. You need a P9 form to fill in your returns. You then copy values from the P9 form onto your return. You then attach the same P9 form to your returns. Just think about that for a minute. What’s the damn point? I might as well just hand in my P9 again!
- COMPLETELY Greek. Not a soul I know could fill in those forms unassisted. Many accountants (including ours) flounder with the Greek like forms asking you to subtract this from that and put it there. (49A + 12B + 5C). What. The. Fuzz?
- COMPLETELY unacknowledged. If some KRA officials get marooned on an island and decide to set your returns on fire for warmth and cooking, you are buggered and have no recourse because you cannot prove you handed in the returns. You don’t get any receipts. In that same vain the KRA can’t prove that you didn’t either.
- COMPLETELY brain dead. If my only income is from my job, and the money is deducted even before I see it, why bother me with amorphous forms asking me questions I neither know, care about or understand? My company accountant is paid to do this, and he does in 12 months a year. Why bother me?
- COMPLETELY GRATUITIOUS use of my time. It is not, repeat NOT my work to track down landlords.
Instead of lowering taxes on cameras to promote the local porn movie industry
- Let tax returns only be for those with other income to declare. I don’t have flats or any other business so leave me alone and stop wasting my time!
- If we still have this foolishness, can’t the P9 be redesigned to BE the return for salaried employees?
- If we still have this foolishness, at least let it be online
- Stop asking me stupid questions. Especially if the answers are already in the P9
- Redesign the bloody thing to make it easier to fill. Why should I give my name, ID number, etc and I already filled in my PIN? It takes special talent to come up with the concept of Personal Identification Number and then ask me to identify myself some more. Nonsense.
- While at it, redesign the P9 too and label the figures with the corresponding slots in the returns forms. As it is both forms seem to have been designed by dyslexic, epileptic monkeys on crack and safari cane highs writing in a moving vehicle driving over corrugated potholes.
I assure whichever finance minister that scraps this stupidity, or at least reforms it, he will be thought of at least as a higher level mammal with binocular vision rather than the river trolls most people are sure their politicians are!
AOB
Yes, I am very much alive and have not been captured by martians. My blogging mojo is much sapped by twitter (http://twitter.com/roomthinker). However I shall make it a point to blog more. I have a lot to say
1. 'Your 1.7'
(39 Comments) | June 30th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
*snicker snicker*. Are you sure you don’t have any other income? The receipts I saw reading ‘M junior car wash, polish and vegetables’? Tihiii
But yes, KRA are skilled at coming up with ways to get us to waste our time. Those returns? Solely a guise for finding errant landlords. THAT is the only part they look at!
2. mudskippah
(15 Comments) | June 30th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Thursday. Fill returns dutifully. Drop them off at Uchumi Hyper in the evening. Sky turns black with clouds. Temperatures drop, clouds burst.
1 hour later, driving at 15kph in mud puddles and sewage lakes in the name of roads, being overtaken by citi hoppas and mats on the left while somewhere ahead a pair of cops watch on. One is holding an umbrella in one hand, an AK in the other.
1 hour later, get home. Hurriedly step in, it’s freezing cold. Put on the security lights. Darkness. Second blackout this week.
1 hour later. Asleep, with a contented smile on my face. It’s that warm, fuzzy, wonderful feeling you get after paying your taxes.
3. WathiiFm
(84 Comments) | June 30th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Why do they even ask who is my landlord and the rent i paid for that year???
Did u notice they were using the 2006 forms?
4. Our Kid
(40 Comments) | June 30th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Wow. This isn’t just any rant. This is what would make me fire the Commissioner (or whatever they call the top honcho at KRA) and give you the job M!
But you telling them to go online? Clearly you haven’t tried to get your PIN online. You fill in the details, and it tells you, now go to KRA. You go to KRA and they tell you.. everything is online, so go back to stare at your monitor. Genius!
Mudskippah… I know the feeling, I really do.
5. Chrenyan
(143 Comments) | June 30th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
I agree - we should just append signatures to P9s and be on our way!
6. Siena
(1 Comments) | June 30th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
This makes me feel better. Canada’s tax system is equally absurd. I finally did mine this year - under the watchful eye of my father who for years has been kind enough to negotiate those little boxes.
Everything repeats itself on several other pages, there’s a whole stream of (ifs) and of calculations to make (but through overly complex columns of if this is true, then proceed here and add from B). Even better: each province has a different taxing “system” with Quebec being the most original!
I imagine that for people like you and I, with little to declare business-wise, they might as well just have one sheet of paper that consolidates our straight forward (and in my case, measly) earnings. Wouldn’t that make everyone’s lives easier?
7. vituvingisana
(38 Comments) | June 30th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
I thought the US Tax Code is horrendous (laws passed by politicians… not the IRS fault) but Kenya is even worse!!! I could use TurboTax in the USA. In Kenya the process is bloody manual!!!!
8. NiKolaS
(28 Comments) | July 1st, 2009 at 6:43 pm
clearly you have a lot to say. sadly my only contribution to this debate is: OH HELL YEAH! sigh.
9. Gish
(16 Comments) | July 1st, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Damn those KRA peoples.Finally filled them and they were brought back it is said that the landlord details were incomplete.
10. Prousette
(143 Comments) | July 2nd, 2009 at 2:49 pm
…”As it is both forms seem to have been designed by dyslexic, epileptic monkeys on crack and safari cane highs writing in a moving vehicle driving over corrugated potholes”
Ouch!
11. kachwanya
(1 Comments) | July 6th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
By definition A tax return is a document that can be filed with a government body declaring liability for taxation. The issue that individuals have to fill the tax return does not make any literal sense.
Online version would be better as it should be able to auto fill most of those annoying blank spaces. And the the landlord crap..most land lords are prominent people and i bet government know or ok the commercial buildings, at end the government has all the records and why they disturb people is beyond any common sense
12. savvy
(27 Comments) | July 13th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Though I pay no income taxes yet..I shudder every time I look at that returns paper my parents struggle to fill year after year knowing my time will come.