KRA’s iTax system down despite late tax returns filing continuing

The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) online tax returns filing system is now not accessible hours after the June 30^th deadline lapsed Thursday midnight.

The system, famously referred to as itax, went offline Friday afternoon before the taxman released a statement outlining the penalties to be levied on all those who failed to meet the deadline.

Several attempts to log in to the website proved futile with an error message reading; “Sorry, iTax System is temporarily unavailable due to a scheduled maintenance. Please try again later.”

A further attempt to call the switchboard and call centre numbers indicated on the website bore no fruits as the calls went unanswered.

In an advert in the local dailies, KRA thanked “1.7 million Kenyans for responding to our call to file 2015 Income Tax Returns through iTax.”

The advert went ahead to read: “Late filing continues beyond 30^th June, 2016 with requisite penalties.”

In an earlier statement, the taxman ruled out extension of the deadline, further indicating that over 2.3 million taxpayers face a penalty of upto Ksh 50,000 for failing to beat the deadline.

According to KRA, taxpayers will pay Ksh 1,000 each day they fail to file their 2015 tax returns, but the penalty is capped at a maximum of Ksh 50,000.

By the June 30th deadline, only 1.7 million taxpayers registered on the iTax system had filed their returns out of the over four million registered taxpayers.

According to KRA, companies that fail to file employment returns will pay a penalty of 25 percent of the tax due or Ksh 10,000 depending on which is higher.

For turnover tax return the penalty has been set at Ksh 5,000 while all other cases will pay a penalty of 35 percent of the tax payable.