The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) collected KES 10 billion ($77.5 million) from cryptocurrency traders in the financial year ended June 2024.
KRA chairman, Anthony Mwaura, said during the country’s Taxpayers’ Day celebration on November 1 2024 at State House, Nairobi, that the cryptocurrency industry had for the first time contributed to the national tax basket.
“In the last financial year … we had 384 (cryptocurrency) customers, and they were able to contribute KES 10 billion [$77.5 million],” Mr Mwaura said.
“We have agreed with our Commissioner-General, I talked even to the Governor of Central Bank, the deputy governor so that we can have a joint technical committee to explore all the means… These people of cryptocurrencies, they want to pay taxes, but we’re unable to reach them,” said Mr Mwaura.
“If we are able to talk and agree with the central bank within this year, and be able to talk to those people who deal with Bitcoin and everything, we will be able to net KES 60 billion [~$465 million].”
Mwaura’s comments are in line with recent commentary by Nickson Omondi, Manager, Digital Economy Tax Office at KRA, who, speaking to BitKE, confirmed that crypto exchanges operating in the country are paying their due share of the taxes.
Taxation of the crypto industry is provided for in the Finance Act of 2023, which introduced a three percent tax on the transfer or exchange of digital assets.
However, collections are still poor due to a lack of a framework to tax the industry and an existing Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) advisory cautioning commercial lenders in the country against doing business with any entities or individuals dealing in cryptocurrencies.
NONSENSE!!!
Central Bank Governor Warns Kenyans to Avoid P2P Crypto Transactions While Banks Risk Licenses Getting Revokedhttps://t.co/6BaGcWlVzf
— STEPHEN-HIGH (@stephenhycinth) March 29, 2022
KRA expects to introduce a new real-time tax system that will integrate with cryptocurrency exchanges allowing the regulator to monitor crypto transactions and collect taxes.
🇰🇪REGULATION | #Kenya Set to Procure a Realtime Tax System to Track, Record Crypto Transactions on Exchanges, Marketplaces
The system shall integrate with cryptocurrency exchanges and marketplaces to track and record cryptocurrency transactionshttps://t.co/ydoWOnEzhT @KRACare pic.twitter.com/akoO9v4NM4
— BitKE (@BitcoinKE) October 15, 2024
“The system shall integrate with cryptocurrency exchanges and marketplaces to track and record cryptocurrency transactions. It shall capture transaction details, including transaction date, time, type and value,” KRA said in a document outlining their tax collection strategies for the financial year 2024/25.
The authority estimated that between 2021 and 2022, the Kenya cryptocurrency market transacted about KES 2.4 trillion ($18.5 billion) representing close to 20 percent of the country’s GDP.
Follow us on X for latest posts and updates
Join and interact with our Telegram community
______________________________________
______________________________________
