Report: Kenya to Start Levying Tax on Revenue Earned by Crypto Exchanges

According to laws revealed by the nation’s treasury secretary, international crypto exchanges utilized by Kenya’s estimated 4 million customers will begin paying a 1.5% tax on revenues earned.

Tax-Avoiding Digital Asset Platforms

The Kenyan Treasury has stated it would begin levying taxes on revenues earned by cryptocurrency exchanges utilized by an estimated 4 million native residents. According to a report by Business Daily Africa, Kenyan authorities will depend on the 1.5% digital tax service that grew to become efficient on Jan.1, 2021.

Initially proposed in 2020, the digital tax is the Kenyan authorities’s try and extract income from main crypto exchanges and tax-avoiding digital asset platforms. As reported by Bitcoin.com News in early January 2021, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) stated it anticipated to get $45.5 million (5 billion Kenyan shillings) from the tax.

Meanwhile, as proven within the 2023 laws’ worth added tax (digital, web and digital market provide) revealed by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u, Kenya can now goal international crypto exchanges.

“For the purposes of these Regulations, a taxable electronic, Internet or digital marketplace supply include…facilitation of online payment for, exchange or transfer of digital assets excluding services exempted under the Act,” the revealed laws state.

Alongside Nigeria and South Africa, Kenya has considered one of Africa’s highest proportions of the inhabitants proudly owning crypto. However, like its friends on the continent, Kenya has not acknowledged cryptocurrencies. The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and its governor have warned residents in opposition to coping with crypto belongings like bitcoin.

Despite the warnings, Kenyan residents proceed to amass and commerce cryptocurrencies and this has prompted the federal government to hunt methods to levy taxes on crypto transactions.

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