Karoney: Digitisation of land to expand tax base, reduce cost of collection
TAXPAYERS: Digitisation of land records will expand the tax base and make it cheaper for taxpayers to comply with tax requirements, Lands Cabinet Secretary Faridah Karoney has said.
She said the digitisation of the land and property market system will result in enhanced revenue collection, reduced tax evasion, and reduced cost of tax collection among other benefits.
“In the perspective of the taxpayers, the digitisation of the land records and land transactions will simplify and reduce the cost of tax compliance, allow for real time decision making, reduce incidents of tax errors and provide an avenue for ease of communication with tax administration authorities,” Karoney said.
The CS spoke during a virtual tax conference organised by the African Tax research Network.
In April, Ministry of Lands launched the National Land Information Management System (Ardhisasa) as part of its efforts to improve efficiency and productivity in land use.
The launch of Ardhisasa kick-started the process to move away from manual paper-based systems which are more susceptible to wear and tear, time wastage, corruption, and poor integration with other public sector agencies.
“I wish to say that use of ICT technologies in the property sector provides a great opportunity for tax administrators to deploy machine learning and artificial intelligence for risk management, fraud detection and compliance with tax and customs laws,” Karoney said.
Property tax
Speaking at the same event, Kenya Revenue Authority Commissioner General, Githii Mburu, regretted that the contribution of property tax to the economy was still low,saying digitisation would help improve collections.
“The sector in which property taxes fall is one of the fastest growing and robust sectors in most economies.
Despite this exponential growth, its contribution to the revenue coffers is still at the minimal, an indication that its full potential is yet to be tapped,” Mburu said.
He observed that the benefits of digitising the tax processes are multi-fold and go a long way in enhancing revenue mobilisation as well as improving service delivery to taxpayers.
