The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has introduced a major digital reform that will significantly ease the process of filing annual income tax returns for salaried employees. Under the new system, salaried workers will only be required to input their National Identification (ID) numbers into the iTax portal, after which their income details will automatically populate.
The automation, which captures gross pay and statutory deductions for the fiscal year, eliminates the need for taxpayers to manually input information from their P9 forms—a requirement that had previously made the filing process tedious for many.
KRA Commissioner General Humphrey Wattang’a explained that the move is part of the Authority’s broader strategy to integrate its systems with other government databases and simplify tax compliance. “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,” Wattang’a noted. He added that KRA is keen on linking with business registration and citizen registration platforms to allow seamless pre-population of taxpayer data.
The shift marks a significant step in KRA’s digitisation journey, which has been informed by consultations with government agencies and stakeholders. By reducing the manual burden on taxpayers, the Authority hopes to enhance efficiency, reduce errors, and encourage voluntary compliance.
Every year, salaried Kenyans are legally required to declare their annual income. An income tax return serves as a declaration of all earnings within a specific fiscal year. By law, every individual with a KRA Personal Identification Number (PIN) must file returns annually, whether or not they earned income during that period.
The announcement comes just weeks after KRA closed its iTax portal for the 2024 filing period, signaling a new phase in how future returns will be managed. The automated filing system is expected to benefit millions of workers by saving time and reducing the complexity of compliance.
With this reform, KRA is positioning itself as a more digitally-driven institution that leverages data integration to modernize tax administration while making compliance easier for Kenyans.
