The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) seeks to transform tax administration with the VAT pre-populated return filling system for the November 2024 tax period which is due by December 20, 2024. This initiative is a significant step towards simplification of VAT return filing process while leveraging on technology to enhance VAT compliance and customer experience.
The VAT pre-populated return presents a paradigm shift from requiring manual data analysis in preparation of VAT returns to prepopulating a return from integrated data obtained from digital platforms such as iTax, TIMS, eTIMS and customs business systems, to ease the burden on tax reporting processes for VAT registered taxpayers.
“The VAT pre-populated return filling system reflects KRA’s commitment to simplifying tax processes,” said the commissioner for domestic taxes.
“We are empowering businesses with a more transparent, efficient, and user-friendly tax reporting system as we explore further possibilities of a fully web based VAT return and a taxpayer dashboard to provide real time view of all the sales and purchases for a given taxpayer.”
VAT registered taxpayers are required to issue and transmit electronic tax invoices to KRA through TIMS/eTIMS for all their sales as required by law.
With the aid of a QR code reader and an invoice checker that can be accessed here, taxpayers can verify whether their purchase invoices have been generated from TIMS/eTIMs or not and whether they include buyer details required for input tax claims. VAT registered taxpayers are required to verify the accuracy of their pre-populated VAT returns prior to submission to avoid errors in their filled VAT returns.
