The Tax Appeals Tribunal led by its chairman Eric Ngongesa this week on Monday April 8, kicked-off a sensitization campaign in Mt Kenya Region to create awareness on the tribunal’s mandate, its processes and the tax payers’ rights, as well as tax dispute resolution issues in Kenya.

On Monday, the team which included members of the Tribunal, KRA, ICPAK, LSK and Kenya Law representatives sensitized stakeholders who included lawyers and business people in Embu town on tax resolution issues.

On Thursday April 11 and Friday April 12, the team will be in Meru and Nyeri, respectively, to conduct the exercise.

The chair said the team was in the region to sensitize the tax payers and the practitioners specifically lawyers and the tax agents, to inform them about the tribunal’s processes and what they require in order to utilize the tribunal’s services.

He observed that there is a bit of absence of knowledge of processes and knowledge of adequate representation saying there is need for public engagements to build capacity for people appearing before the tribunal. The chairman noted this is important to increase the knowledge of the tax payer so that one knows about who to engage in terms of representation.

“There is a bit of absence of knowledge of processes and knowledge of adequate representation…that is why we feel that we need to do more of these engagements to build capacity for people appearing before the tribunal in terms of representation,” Mr Eric Nyongesa said.

He added: “Tax payers do not know how to deal with disputes when they are served with an assessment by the commissioner. ..they do not have proper representation in terms of tax agents and even the lawyers representing them are not active tax practitioners.”

Mr Nyongesa explained that the Tribunal was set up in 2015 specifically to deal with tax disputes adding that it is the first court that you go to when you have a dispute or tax matters with the KRA.

He assured taxpayers in the area that the tribunal has sufficient capacity to address and resolve tax disputes in the country.

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