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The Kenya Revenue Authority raised Sh1.365 trillion in revenue collection during the 2016/2017 financial year, which was 66 billion shillings lower than the revised annual target of Sh1.431 trillion.

This represents a 13.8% increase on the previous year’s collection of 1.21 trillion shillings.

KRA plans to extend the Excisable Goods Management System to bottled water, juices and carbonated drinks in the current financial year.

Exuding confidence over the Kenya Revenue Authority performance Njiraini conveys optimism for the country’s fiscal stability.

He said this will also bolster Kenya’s potential for future business prospects, given the robust performance in many tax areas.

The tax body says compared to past experiences during election years, KRA has performed better this year meaning the election has had no impact on business performance.

This is also after food shortages prompted the government to exempt some imported food items from taxation to bridge the deficit experienced.

This also against a weak growth in cargo import traffic, a phenomenon witnessed across all the EAC economies, and which adversely impacted customs revenue.

Kenya’s Tax-to-GDP ratio stands at 19.3%, which is the second highest in non-oil economies within Africa, and the highest within the EAC region that has an average tax-to-GDP ratio of 14.8%.

Consumption taxes exhibited strong performance with VAT growing at 21.2% attributed to expansion of withholding VAT framework which now covers in total 3,231 large taxpayers.

Domestic Excise Tax grew 13.3% with the main contributors being beer, spirits and tobacco products. This was mainly due to enhanced compliance brought about by improved enforcement through the Excisable Goods Management System.

KRA plans to extend the Excisable Goods Management System application to more products such as bottled water, juices and carbonated drinks in the current financial year.

Corporation tax rose 18.2% driven to good profitability following cost management measures instituted by banks and stricter enforcement by KRA of bad debt provisioning rules.

The tax body plans to roll out a new tax system dubbed, Integrated Customs Management System later this month to replace the current Simba System.