Yesterday, I was at the mezz. floor of the banking hall at times towers queuing to pay my balance of tax for 2010 [a cash flow problem forced me to miss the April 30 deadline, so there was a 20% penalty to pay as well]. I queued from 10am to 10:45am. The queue was about 20 people long and there was only one counter open.

After standing on the immobile queue for about 20min, I went and talked to one of the supervisors and explained that is was unfair to keep us on that long queue yet we all had come to bring them money. "We are not like the MPs who have refused to pay, you don't even have to come and demand it from us... tumejilete kwa hiari yetu..."

He saw the logic - quite a nice fellow really - and organised for two more counters to be opened.... then at 10.45am, I reached the front of the queue, paid my tax and went back to my business. No TV cameras, no congratulations, nothing.

Then, two hours later, a tax dodger who has been caught-up with by KRA shows up... TV and newspaper cameras in tow. Joins the queue [which has now shortened considerably due to my earlier intervention], pays the tax which he has been dodging for the last 9 months then goes to a press conference where he urges fellow tax dodgers to come out and pay.

He even goes on to explain that it was not his fault... apparently, KRA should have sent him a demand letter the moment the law was changed blah...blah...blah....

And I wondered to myself, I have never waited for KRA to send me a demand letter. From the moment I left formal employment [where tax was deducted at source], I knew that it was my DUTY to go to KRA, give them my statement of incomes and pay my share of tax on it.

And this guy wants to be President? Anyone who does not understand that it is his/her DUTY to go and declare their income to KRA and then pay the tax is not fit to a leader!!

me too, instead, I have to file tax returns to prove the amount paid for was all I owed.

@Mukiha, well said and put. If you want to use the tax isue as a sign of leadership, look at Peter Keneth and Muthama, not the other scoundrel who uses misfortune of others to make political mileage. Shindwe!

Yesterday, I was at the mezz. floor of the banking hall at times towers queuing to pay my balance of tax for 2010 [a cash flow problem forced me to miss the April 30 deadline, so there was a 20% penalty to pay as well]. I queued from 10am to 10:45am. The queue was about 20 people long and there was only one counter open.

After standing on the immobile queue for about 20min, I went and talked to one of the supervisors and explained that is was unfair to keep us on that long queue yet we all had come to bring them money. "We are not like the MPs who have refused to pay, you don't even have to come and demand it from us... tumejilete kwa hiari yetu..."

He saw the logic - quite a nice fellow really - and organised for two more counters to be opened.... then at 10.45am, I reached the front of the queue, paid my tax and went back to my business. No TV cameras, no congratulations, nothing.

Then, two hours later, a tax dodger who has been caught-up with by KRA shows up... TV and newspaper cameras in tow. Joins the queue [which has now shortened considerably due to my earlier intervention], pays the tax which he has been dodging for the last 9 months then goes to a press conference where he urges fellow tax dodgers to come out and pay.

He even goes on to explain that it was not his fault... apparently, KRA should have sent him a demand letter the moment the law was changed blah...blah...blah....

And I wondered to myself, I have never waited for KRA to send me a demand letter. From the moment I left formal employment [where tax was deducted at source], I knew that it was my DUTY to go to KRA, give them my statement of incomes and pay my share of tax on it.

And this guy wants to be President? Anyone who does not understand that it is his/her DUTY to go and declare their income to KRA and then pay the tax is not fit to a leader!!