Listen to This Article Enhance your reading experience by listening to this article.

Manufacturers are pushing for consolidation of taxes to bolster regional trade competitiveness and bring down the cost of doing business in Kenya.

While Kenya’s industrial growth has been on a lull following Covid economic assault, manufacturers say the existing tax environment has worsened the cost of doing business, calling for more predictability to cushion local industries from scaling down.

“Realizing the gains that local industries present, it requires a step up in policy support, we urge the incoming government to resolve these issues, to drive the manufacturing-led economic development,” Kenya Association of Manufacturers  Ag. Chief Executive Tobias Alando told Business Hub.

Treasury has invited stakeholders to give their input on the draft national tax policy, yielding to pressures by industries players who in the recent years have been lobbying for regulatory and tax reforms to ease compliance, and cut operation burden.

The draft policy aims to, among other things, enhance tax predictability and increase revenue collection, signaling attempts to expand the tax base especially among the informal sector players.

These changes are projected to raise ordinary revenue as a share of GDP to 16.3 per cent over the medium term to June 2026 from the current estimate of 14.3 per cent.

With the taxman keen on increasing tax revenues in the current fiscal year, businesses are concerned about the possibility of taxes stifling investment. Numerous taxes and levies collected by the national and county governments, and State agencies put more pressure on the finances of most local businesses.

Maize millers, for instance, have to pay levies in every county they transverse ferrying their produce.