The Kenya Revenue Authority has announced that as at December 8th they have managed to collect over one trillion shillings by 30 billion.
The tax man says they have recorded an upward trajectory in revenue collection despite the tough economic times and other shock to the economy.
“KRA has hit the one trillion mark after collecting Ksh 1.030 Trillion as of the 8th December recording a 15.8% growth in November. Kshs 180.714 billion was collected up from Kshs 156.095 billion collected in November 2022.” read a statement by the tax man.
Revenue collection has progressively increased in the last 5 months (July –November 2023/24) after KRA collected Kshs 963.746 billion compared to Kshs 856.646 billion collected in the same period last financial year, representing a growth of 12.5%.
During the period, there was a significant depreciation of the Kenyan shilling against the US dollar by 24.7% in November 2023 and 22.0% in July – November 2023. This, coupled with increasing prices of key products like oil, has the effect of driving down import demand.
While import values (in Kenya Shilling terms) grew by 36.0% and 11.0% in November 2023 and July – November 2023 respectively, in dollar terms, the growth for the month was subdued to 9.0%, and a decline of 9.2% was recorded cumulatively.
Revenue performance was also affected by low domestic demand as indicated by the slowed Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) that averaged 47.18 points in July – November 2023 down from 48.66 points in July – November 2022.
The tight financial markets marked by an increase in lending rates and interbank rates, have slowed down credit extension, especially to the private sector, resulting in a decline in Bank profitability by 4.9% as of September 2023.
Customs recorded the second-highest monthly collection in the history of KRA with revenue collections amounting to Kshs 72.116 billion. This reflects a growth of 17.6% over the Kshs 61.322 billion realized in November 2022.
