The National Treasury has quietly reintroduced a controversial proposal in the 2025 Finance Bill that seeks to grant the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) access to personal data and trade secrets.
Despite last year's backlash, the Treasury appears undeterred, reviving the same clause with minimal alterations.
Currently, Section 59A (1B) of the Tax Procedures Act explicitly bars the KRA from requiring businesses to share data relating to trade secrets or personal information collected or held on behalf of customers.
According to tax expert Alex Kanyi, the 2025 Finance Bill proposes scrapping that section of the Act to allow KRA to obtain transactional data collected by businesses in real time, even if it contains private customer details. "They want to do some amendments to the Tax Procedures Act.
