The Governor, Vihiga County Address: Vihiga - Maragoli Road, Maragoli, Kenya No E-mail address & Post Office Box Number ATT: MOSES AKARANGA THE GOVERNOR VIHIGA COUNTY REF: LEVY OF TAXES Good morning Bw. Governor. Am sure you will appreciate the fact that the government bill that has been prepared by your county finance committee and published on 24/01/2014 in the Friday Standard to be tabled before the public today 27/01/2014 did not give sufficient time to the public to go through and provide their inputs as is provided in law. In other words, that is illegal. The illegality stems from the following reasons; 1) The public was not involved in the various anticipated sources of incomes for which taxes are being levied. You will recall that I have always advised your county officers that public participation is a structured thing – is not a public relation exercise where all sorts of people including unknowledgeable persons are invited to shopping centres through public address to come and be used as a rubber stamp on what they have already concluded to be their public policy. Public participation in stead entails writing to various representative groups in the county, giving them the agenda of the county’s intentions on taxations for which they are required to provide their inputs and advice. Before a public gathering is called, the county finance committee is required to already have had the inputs of various groups e.g. politicians, administrators, taxation experts, doctors, engineers, churches, teachers, disabled, women and youth groups, e.t.c. 2) Taxes, especially progressive taxes [income taxes] are not levied on anything on sight as your officers are doing. Instead, it is levied in accordance with income group proportions where an individual is required to prepare his final record of incomes at the end of the year from which government tax experts are required to decide eligibility or the capacity of that individual to pay a certain amount of tax from his/ her incomes. In my view, this is the work of national government and if the same is being replicated at the county level, then it amounts to double taxation. 3) Please let’s not mix progressive taxation with regressive taxation where we have a flat rate of taxes for everyone both the rich and the poor. Put differently, let’s not mix taxes such VAT with income taxes as your officers are doing due to lack of knowledge in those fields. 4) By law, your officers are only required to levy taxes on property, entertainment and from services that the county renders to them. This means, the county is required to provide the public with things like construction of good parking bays, market stalls, shops, stadiums, public toilets, recreation parks e.t.c. and then charge people for using those facilities - any other thing beyond this is illegal and the public have a right to refuse such legislation through riot or may sue you. It is therefore my humble request to you sir not to engage the public with these unnecessary taxation bills because they are already over-burdened with other taxes from the national government for which county governments get a share. These include income tax, PAYE, NHIF, NSSF, VAT, Custom and exercise duty and motor vehicle transport taxes. christopheramasava@yahoo 27/01/2014 Cc: • President Uhuru Kenyatta • Deputy President William Ruto • The Committee on Revenue Allocation • CIC • Raila Odinga • Citizen newspapers
Posted on: Mon, 27 Jan 2014 08:19:25 +0000
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