A businessman on Wednesday, January 18, accused the government of driving him out of business by denying him excise duty stamps.
The man claimed that he was sabotaged by the state for not issuing him with new excise stamps despite his application in August 2022, forcing him to stop operations.
According to the entrepreneur, every time he contacted the relationship officer assigned to facilitate the approval of his stamps, he claimed that the person in charge was out of office and the approval could not be done.
“I was entered into a payment plan which I cleared in December 2022. However, when I followed up in December 13, 2022, I was issued with additional assessments,” the businessman stated.
“I emailed the relationship officer assigned to my account and followed up with phone calls.To date, the boss has not seen the need to come to the office and facilitate the release of the stamps I already paid for,” the man lamented.
Furthermore, the businessman noted that the Excisable Goods Management System (EGMS) which was meant to ease trade by automating the systems and make tax administration easy, did not serve its purpose.
He stated that whenever manufacturers needed stamps for their businesses, tax assessment warnings were issued, forcing many small enterprises to close shop.
Owing to the delay, the man added that many Kenyans resorted to getting fake stamps that were readily available instead of losing sales and customers.
“Like the president, I've always wondered why Kenya uses fewer stamps than Uganda and Tanzania, both of which have much smaller economies, and this is one of the reasons,” the businessman stated in a statement on Twitter.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) on Wednesday, January 18, arrested six suspects in connection with the production of fake tax stamps, including those of the Tanzania Revenue Authority and Uganda Revenue Authority.
"The suspects were rounded up in different parts of the city and counterfeit stamps were recovered as evidence," DCI stated on Twitter.
This came on the backdrop of President William Ruto's for the collection of at least Ksh3 trillion by the end of the 2022/2023 financial year.
According to the President, there was no reason why Tanzania and Uganda were collecting more revenue than Kenya.
