The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has announced a four-hour service disruption to the iTax portal to allow for planned maintenance of the system.
In a notice issued on Thursday, September 18, the Authority said the system maintenance would take place from Thursday, September 18, at 10pm to Friday, September 19, at 2am.
"The Kenya Revenue Authority informs all stakeholders that there will be a scheduled maintenance. We regret any inconvenience caused," KRA announced.
It went on to add that during the period, all online services linked to iTax would be unavailable. The iTax is a digital system that has been developed by KRA to improve efficiency.
It allows a taxpayer to update their tax registration details, file tax returns, register all tax payments and make status enquiries with real-time monitoring of their ledger account.
The large-scale maintenance is aimed at helping the revenue collector onboard and manage more services online.
KRA's scheduled maintenance to its iTax system comes a week after it also updated its Integrated Customs Management Systems (iCMS).
The iCMS is a modern digital system adopted by KRA that automates, integrates, and harmonises the Authority's customs processes into a single system that is accessible to importers and exporters.
It enables trade efficiency by increasing speed in the cargo clearance process, reducing the complexities associated with several systems of the automation of manual processes and reengineering of processes.
KRA, in a notice published on Friday, September 12, revealed that the maintenance would be carried out on Saturday, September 13, from 4am to 10am on the same day.
The Authority thus urged stakeholders, particularly importers and exporters, to prepare accordingly to avoid inconveniences. The iCMS downtime also affected the clearing agents and other stakeholders in the trade industry.
KRA Automates Tax Return Filing
Meanwhile, the Authority's planned maintenance of the iTax system comes a month after KRA did away with the manual tax return filing system through iTax and instead automated the process.
In the changes, KRA explained that salaried workers would only be required to key in their National Identification (ID) numbers into the iTax system, which will then autopopulate their annual income tax data.
The system would automatically capture key details such as gross pay and statutory deductions for the specific fiscal year.
"Data is going to become, or has become, our greatest asset, so we want to see how we integrate it into various data systems internally so that we do not have siloed systems but integrated systems," said KRA Commissioner General Humphrey Wattang'a.
