Customer care by KRA personnel is a must. Taxpayers are customers. They are provided services by KRA and KRA is paid for the services by the government.
Customer care by KRA personnel is a must. Taxpayers are customers. They are provided services by KRA and KRA is paid for the services by the government.
On 26th August 2020, a sunny Monday, at 9.33 am, I received a message via SMS. from +254791740548, the following message, ‘KCB Dear Customer: your Account has been (Suspended) Contact 0102033898 Kcb bank within 24hrs thank you.’ It was evident that the Nairobi conmen or conwomen were at it again, having sleepless nights dreaming and planning how to con me during these hard COVID-19 times.
I hold no account in KCB!
Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, it seems like an equivalent conning pandemic commenced earnestly. I wonder what happened to the much-hyped promise of registering all SIM cards in the country. We live in a funny country where I cannot transact any business with mobile money people unless I have an original national Identification Card (ID).
Yet, hundreds of people in the same country will not only transact business with the mobile people but will even get SIM cards without any form of identification and use the SIM cards without the cards being registered.
Talk of double standards.
Is it too much for Kenyans to demand that the mobile companies whose SIM cards are misused be heavily penalized by the Communication Authority of Kenya (CAK)? I may not have lost any money, but it is annoying having to deal with potential thieves almost daily. These experiences have left many Kenyans, including me, very skeptical about any strange phone calls.
Unknown phone calls are not identifiable by Truecaller, and the callers are unwilling to identify themselves. For whatever reasons or calls that are marked as spam by Truecaller.
The Call from ‘KRA’
At 12.53 pm on the same day, I received another call from number 0711099000. I looked at my phone screen, and okay, the number has been reported as spam a record two hundred and thirty-five (235) times. I was ready for the caller. Unfortunately, the person started talking about an unresolved tax issue for a taxpayer I know. Apparently, the person was talking about figures that were wrong and did not know what the issue was about.
I started interviewing the person; the person even commented I was interrogating as the police do.
Question: What is your name?
Answer: ABC.
Question: What is your second name?
Answer: Can’t tell we are not allowed.
Question: Who is your immediate boss?
Answer: EFGH.
Question: What is their full name?
Answer: Can’t tell. It is a new company policy.
Question: Where are you based?
Answer: Head office.
Question: But the head office is large, the building has 31 floors?
Answer: We are on the second floor?
Question: But the second floor has return filing and debts are station matters etc.
Answer: Where are you based?
Question: Second floor.
I informed ABC that I had been a tax officer and I was a tax consultant. I know the rules.
Question (again): What is your second name?
Answer: Can’t tell.
I told the person to go ahead and make a tax demand because if they cannot identify fully, it does not matter where they are calling from. They come out as conmen or conwomen.
We left it at that.
When you get a call from a number registered as having been reported 235 times as spam and the person cannot tell their second name, what are you expected to think? Any person who does not identify themselves fully has something to hind.
To me, this was another conwoman about town.
On second thought, I decided to call the number.
At 12.59, I dialed the same number three times. The telephone number is a KRA number, but it was not picked. I called the same number at 13.05 three times, and after twists and turns, I finally spoke to a lady who confirmed yes. They have two people with the name ABC. But I could not tell who was who. I said it was the ABC who had called me.
I then asked the person what they do. I was informed that it is the marketing department. And about identifying themselves, I was told they are not supposed to give their second names. I informed the person that their number had been marked as spam 235 times. I left a message that ABC be told I called and to call me back. Thirteen (13) days later, ABC has not bothered to call.
Many conmen and con women in Kenya work with people inside KRA and call taxpayers in town claiming they are from KRA. When Kenyans are told the caller is from KRA, they do not bother to ask for identification. My advice, tell the caller to put it in writing in an email. Hence, many Kenyans have been conned by people purporting to be from KRA. Just like any organization, some crafty Kenyans impersonate KRA officers in their con games.
Taxpayers charter
In the famous KRA Taxpayers Charter, the rights and obligations of a taxpayer are well detailed. This is a public document, and if my memory serves me well, KRA has never withdrawn this document from the public. In the document, one of the taxpayer rights is to demand the identification of anyone claiming to be a KRA officer. KRA personnel must identify themselves fully and not hide under company policies of half identification.
Any KRA personnel claiming that they are not supposed to identify themselves fully is contravening the Taxpayers Charter, a document authored by KRA and provided to the public. There is a saying that a vehicle without a registration number belongs to a thief. If a person does not identify themselves fully, there is something wrong in the organization.
Even the police in this country are under strict instructions to identify themselves by displaying their employment budges in visible locations. Kenyans have a right to demand the name of the police and their forces identification. This is because they are public servants.
KRA is a public organization funded by public funds. Personnel in KRA are not exempt from public servants’ requirements to identify themselves because they are public servants. Though Section 7 of the Tax Procedures Act (2015) gives KRA authorized officers the police’s powers to administer a tax law in the performance of the officers’ duties, the question remains whether the staff in the marketing department are authorized, officers. And if they are, they need to familiarize themselves with police procedures, and proper identification is one of the requirements.
According to the KRA Act Cap 469, KRA is a public body that is paid a commission from taxpayers’ taxes for the work it does of:
Assessment and collection of revenue.
For the administration and enforcement of the laws relating to revenue.
To provide for connected purposes.
What KRA needs to do
The personnel in KRA must at all times remember what KRA’s role is in the country. The hid and seek game does not wash. Taxpayers are grownups, and they should be treated as such. Many times, taxpayers in Kenya suffer under KRA inaction. Commonly, one Section in KRA will fail to do its job, and another Section will pick the same issue, and harassment starts.
For example, the issue that resulted in the exchange on 26th August 2020 is a tax issue that has been pending since 2018. The company has written several letters for the non-existent debt to be vacated, and nothing has been done. Another section of KRA had even distressed for the same amount, and they had to pull back. It is important to remember that every taxpayer in Kenya has consciously chosen to engage in an activity subject to taxation.
There is no law in this country that dictates that every Kenyan must engage in an activity subject to tax. Without taxpayers, there would never be KRA. Taxpayers do not exist because of KRA, but KRA exists because there are taxpayers in this country.
KRA should do the following:
- The harassment of taxpayers should cease. Establish internal mechanisms to properly handle all tax debts with unresolved issues in one centralized section regarding the debt originating tax TSO/Station.
- Have KRA telephone numbers removed from the Truecaller identification as spam numbers.
- Always remember the mandate, according to KRA Act Cap 469.
- Teach their personnel that a tax inquiry is never a secret; taxpayers know what they owe.
Proper full identification is great customer care!
Questions:
- As a taxpayer, have you received a phone call from people who refuse to identify themselves and claim they are from KRA?
- Did you confirm whether they were indeed from KRA?
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