The High Court has ordered Keroche Breweries Limited to pay Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) KShs500Million for the Authority to lift the agency notice issued to the company’s banks. This is contrary to Media reports that KRA had been barred from recovering KShs.9.1 billion in taxes from the company.

On 13th March, 2020, Keroche Breweries Limited had gone to court under a certificate of urgency seeking orders to lift the agency notice served to its banks by KRA. The notice was to enable KRA recover Kshs 9.1 Billion following the orders given by the Tax Appeal Tribunal (TAT) on 9th March, 2020.

The court certified Keroche’s application as urgent and the brewery was issued with a temporary stay of the tribunals order pending the hearing and determination of the application for stay. The court further ordered that Keroche’s application for stay to be mentioned on 16th March 2020.

During the mention, KRA requested to be heard in opposition of the application for stay. After the hearing, the court made the following orders;

1. There shall be a stay of further enforcement of any collection of taxes ensuing from the decision of TAT in Tax Appeal Tribunal, Tax Appeal Number 137 of 2017as consolidated with TAT number 138 and 139 of 2017 and Tax Appeal number 214 of 2015 as consolidated with TAT number 38 of 2017 and 97 of 2017

2. The stay shall be on condition that the appellant pays KShs500Million within the next 30days in default of which the order of stay shall lapse without any further order.

3. The TAT was directed to furnish the typed copies of the judgement to all the parties within 48 hours and typed proceedings within seven (7) days from day of the court hearing.

4. The appellant was also ordered to file and serve its record of appeal within 30 days from the date of the court hearing. ISO 9001:2015 CERTIFIED PUBLIC

5. The order shall apply to Tax APPEAL NO. E012 of 2020 and tax appeal number EO13 of 2020.

6. The case will be mentioned on 23rd April 2020.

Commissioner, Legal Services & Board Co-ordination – Paul Matuku