The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) has explained a common mistake that is causing some taxpayers' 2025 income tax returns to be rejected, despite their returns initially passing validation checks.

🇰🇪 Breaking It Down

The clarification came after a taxpayer complained that his 2025 return had been rejected because the income and expenses declared did not tally with records available on the Electronic Tax Invoice Management System (eTIMS).

The taxpayer questioned why KRA had earlier advised Kenyans to file their 2025 returns even if some business expenses were not supported by eTIMS invoices, only for the system to reject the return.

"My validated 2025 return has been rejected. The error message is that the income and expenses do not tally with what appears on etims, yet you advised us to file 2025 with expenses not necessarily supported on etims," questioned the online user.

📌 What You Need to Know

Responding to the concern, KRA revealed that many taxpayers are failing to complete an additional step required for claiming manual or non-eTIMS business expenses.

According to the Authority, taxpayers must first upload all manual and non-eTIMS invoices through the Income Tax Return Adjustments section before capturing the expenses in their tax returns.

"Please note that if you have manual or non-eTIMS expenses, a field has been provided under the Tax Computation Sheet, Row 6, for capturing valid business expenses not supported by eTIMS invoices," KRA stated.

However, KRA emphasised that taxpayers must first upload the invoices by navigating to Returns, selecting Income Tax Return Adjustments, and then choosing Manual and Non-eTIMS/TIMS Invoices before entering the expenses in the relevant fields.

The clarification now sheds light as to why some tax returns are being rejected , even where taxpayers have genuine business expenses that do not appear in eTIMS records.

Effectively, the taxman confirmed the introduction of an additional compliance step for taxpayers seeking to claim expenses incurred outside the eTIMS system, but which were legitimate expenses.

📰 Source: Kenyans.co.ke