Businesses will be required to maintain up-to-date stock records under a new Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) eTIMS functionality designed to track the movement of goods through their operations.

🇰🇪 Breaking It Down

In a public notice issued on Friday, September 4, KRA explained that under the new arrangement, taxpayers using its Electronic Tax Invoice Management System (eTIMS) or Tax Invoice Management System (TIMS) will be expected to account for stock as it moves through their businesses.

This means businesses will be required to capture goods as they are purchased, received, sold, transferred, returned, adjusted or discarded.

“KRA informs all taxpayers engaged in business that they are required to maintain accurate and up-to-date stock records while using TIMS/eTIMS in accordance with the law,” the notice stated.

📌 What You Need to Know

The authority added, “The stock records should accurately account for goods as they move through the business and reflect stock purchased or received, sold, transferred, returned, adjusted or otherwise disposed of in the course of doing business.”

The development will give the tax authority greater oversight of stock movements recorded by businesses through the system.

KRA said it is intended to strengthen compliance with tax obligations and improve the accuracy of tax returns and other business reporting.

For businesses, the change means stock records will need to remain current and correspond with transactions captured in their electronic records.

Discrepancies between stock held by a business and information recorded through the system could therefore create additional compliance concerns.

The requirement could also mean more record-keeping work for small businesses that have traditionally relied on manual stock books or basic accounting systems.

📰 Source: Kenyans.co.ke