Compliance with Tax Invoice Management System (TIMS)

In the words of author John Maxwell, ‘Change is Inevitable, Growth is Optional.’ In order for businesses to deal with these changes, they have to be flexible in their operations, anticipate as well as be proactive in their strategy formulation. We are in an era where most things, if not all, are digital. Likewise, for businesses, we have upgraded from the old ETR system to the Tax Invoice Management System (TIMS).

The cheapest device in the market is barely fifty thousand Kenyan shillings. In this digital era with daily progress in technological advancements, we must not rule out the possibility of the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) incorporating a web or mobile application that is well-integrated with the tax registry of all taxpayers. This may phase out the manual adoption of the TIMS device. On the positive side, the challenge incurred by many taxpayers in adopting TIMS, e.g. the associated costs, may be cleared with a single app download and installation.

Nevertheless, we appreciate the introduction of TIMS which facilitates electronic tax invoice management through standardization, validation and transmission of invoices to KRA on a real-time or near-real-time basis. A rise is expected in the revenues collected since its introduction. Not only has TIMS proven to minimize VAT fraud practices, but also increased VAT compliance among taxpayers.

VAT remains a monthly obligation that requires registered taxpayers to file their VAT returns on or before the 20^th of every following month. While filing these tax returns, we wish to remind taxpayers of the importance of keeping records to support the transactions incurred in the past periods.