Sh896 Billion Returned from Offshore Accounts by Wealth Kenyans During Tax Amnesty Cannot be Traced

Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is unable to trace nearly Sh1 trillion repatriated from offshore accounts by wealthy Kenyans following a three-year tax amnesty, according to reports.

Individuals wiring funds back from abroad during the period did so tax-free and were exempted from declaring their sources of wealth or accounting for previous years’ tax arrears.

In May 2019, KRA declared that 16,000 Kenyans had repatriated a total of Sh1.014 trillion from offshore accounts.

But the latest records from the tax authority indicate that only Sh186 billion had been returned by some 3,3,543 Kenyans on August 30th, Business Daily reported on Tuesday. This raises questions as to where Sh896 billion is.

 “The amount of money remitted through the amnesty was Sh118 billion and the amnesty had no tax consequences. The seekers were only required to declare to KRA foreign earned income and repatriate proceeds to Kenya by June 30, 2019. In absence, declaration made but funds repatriated later on or before June 30, 2024, would suffer a penalty of 10 percent of the repatriated funds,” KRA told Business Daily.

Most of the cash was repatriated from countries considered tax havens including Switzerland, Cyprus, Channel Islands, and Liechtenstein.

KRA cannot establish whether the money was channeled towards development or was rewired abroad after the owners were cleared by the government.

The tax pardon announced by former Treasury CS Henry Rotich in 2016 was meant to entice wealthy Kenyans to return funds stashed in offshore accounts.

The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), an American think tank, in a 2018 report revealed that wealthy Kenyans were hiding over Sh5 trillion in offshore tax havens across the world.