Taxes –Senator Tabitha Karanja has blamed the Kenya Revenue Authority KRA for interfering with the smooth flow of her Keroche Breweries empire.
Speaking about this on Sunday February 5 morning, Ms Karanja argued that her company now cannot access bank loans after KRA accused them of tax evasion.
She seized the opportunity to ask the current government of William Ruto to help resolve all state captured businesses.
According to Karanja, State capture is behind the long-running multi-billion-shilling tax case with her Naivasha-based firm.
The company has been facing month-long closures over the past years; add effects of Coronavirus and this threw the business into a state of disarray.
She added that, within a period of three years, her company had registered poor prospects and progress with a whopping loss of sh 20 billion.
“Let’s all support His Excellency the President (William Ruto) on his call to increase the tax bracket and collections but we cannot achieve that if we continue frustrating the existing tax payers and putting state captures, use of mercenary tactics and terrorizing local businesses,” Karanja stated on Sunday, February 6.
“In fact, we demand immediate release from these state captures,” she added.
Explaining the background behind the Ksh14.1 billion tax battle, Keroche noted that it stemmed from a dispute over the calculation of excise tax on their Vienna Ice ready-to-drink vodka brand.
This brand, Keroche produces by diluting their Crescent Vodka brand with distilled water from their brewery source.
Therefore, the company is challenging KRA’s computed figures which charged excise duty on the 162 million litres of water used to dilute the vodka, at a rate of sh 120/litre amounting to sh 12.1 billion and the resultant VAT of sh 1.9 billion – totaling the publicized tax bill of sh 14 billion announced in 2019.
