Photo/The Big IssueKenyan taxpayers got a sigh of relief after he Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) moved to extend the period for filing tax returns to the end of this month.

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The 30 day grace period now will give chance to all who had not complied to KRA’s directive to regularise their tax status failure to which one will face penalties.

In a statement, the taxman stated: “This is to inform you that, your return for obligation Income Tax - Resident Individual and period from: 01/01/2016 to 31/12/2016 is not received by Kenya Revenue Authority by the due date 30/06/2017.”

Earlier on during the month of May, the revenue authority had warned that individuals who would fail to file annual returns for 2016 by June 30th would be charged a fine of five per cent of the due tax to a maximum of Sh20,000.

It was expected that the body would begin deactivating personal identification numbers (PINs) of non-compliant taxpayers from Thursday last week before the new directive.