wee @TomBoy Facebook like Turtle Bay Resort is AVAILABLE TO EVERYONE. Facebook like Turtle Bay has hired italian translators to ensure your stay there is comfortable and ACCESSIBLE but not to export to your Turtle Bay to italy - that does not make sense.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessdailyafrica.com/analysis/Taxing-eservice-firms-based-outside-Kenya/539548-3345772-view-asAMP-yj6y1mz/index.html#ampshare=https://www.businessdailyafrica.com/analysis/Taxing-eservice-firms-based-outside-Kenya/539548-3345772-isar0wz/index.html

In this day and age of the Internet, data, smart phones and apps, this move was timely and when it was enacted it was anticipated that it would bring more people into the VAT net.

However since the law provides that the foreign supplier and his local VAT representative will be jointly and severally liable for any tax liabilities of the foreign supplier, local persons have been understandably reluctant to assume the VAT representative role.

The other challenge has been the unintended consequences that could stem from VAT registration.

If we set the challenges of finding a willing local VAT representative aside, there is the dark cloud of triggering a permanent establishment and the ensuing income tax consequences that hang over the whole thing.

Even though VAT on e-services was never meant to result in the creation of a tax presence in Kenya for income tax purposes, there is the real possibility that the tax authorities could infer the creation of a tax presence in Kenya through the VAT representative.

Inferring a tax presence means that the foreign supplier would be required to pay Kenyan income tax on the e-services sales reported for VAT purposes by the VAT representative.

It is this income tax uncertainty that foreign suppliers are particularly uncomfortable with.

The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that registering for a PIN, which is used for income tax purposes, is a prerequisite for VAT registration.

Other governments around the world which are open to a more progressive outlook to these things, are pushing to rewrite their tax rules to capture tax from technology companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc, which may have no representative offices, or other physical presence in a country, but are accruing profits through large numbers of online users.