The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) is paying close attention to huge cash payments by betting firms, which points to a possibility of tax evasion and money laundering in this cash-rich sector.
Because cash is one of the options in the modes of payments, KRA says it has noticed a trend where betting companies, unlike other sectors, have increasingly paid in cash, making it difficult to follow the money trail.
The cash transactions have raised a red flag at a time when some punters are paying betting firms using untraceable cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, making it difficult for KRA to collect taxes.
KRA Chief Manager Domestic taxes Miriam Sila on Tuesday said they are cases where they have bumped into huge figures—as much as Sh100 million—with its mode of payment being cash.
“That is just one area, there might another one with a similar amount. That tells you the collection was done during the night, it is not banked, it is still somewhere in cash. That is why you can utilise it to go pay your taxes in cash,” said Sila.
This comes at a time when KRA has integrated its system with that of 16 betting firms allowing for daily remittances of excise and withholding taxes paid by punters as well as related data.
The 15 percent betting tax that is paid by the betting firm is, however, excluded from this integration that has helped the taxman collect a record Sh22.5 billion in taxes from the betting sector in the first nine months of the current financial year ending June 2023.
In the financial year 2021/22, KRA collected Sh21 billion from this sector, a figure that has already been surpassed in the first nine months.
KRA hopes that with the introduction of the daily payments where firms are paying the two taxes—7.5 percent excise tax on the amount staked and 20 percent withholding tax on winnings—through a pay bill maintained by a telecoms operator, cash payments will fall.
