KRA customer service confirmed that the platform was experiencing downtime.
Customers accessing the taxman's services through the eCitizen platform have expressed frustration over a system outage that has disrupted generation and downloading of eTIMS invoices.
Several users said they had successfully generated invoices but were unable to download them, leaving payments and other transactions in limbo for the past three days.
For instance, Agnes Atieno, a freelance journalist and consultant based in Kisumu, said the disruption had delayed payment for services she had provided to a firm.
She said she had been instructed to submit an invoice to the organisation’s finance department before her payment could be processed.
“I was supposed to submit the invoice on Friday and was expecting to be paid today. My daughter was sent home because of school fees and my rent is also due. I don’t know how I’ll manage,” she said.
Ms Atieno said her employer had informed her that payment could not be processed without an eTIMS invoice, a requirement for tax compliance.
“I was told I cannot be paid because it is a requirement by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA). If KRA is implementing these systems but cannot maintain them, how are we supposed to settle our pending bills?” she said.
Another taxpayer, Joseph Raymond, said he spent nearly six hours trying to generate an invoice on the site.
“At first, I thought I had run out of data, so I bought another data package worth Sh100, but nothing changed. After around six hours, I managed to create the invoice, but it failed to download,” he said.
Mr Raymond said he also tried sending the invoice to a different email address, but was still unable to access or download the document.
The second year student at Maseno University said the delay had disrupted his plans to report back to school for the new semester.
“I cannot go because I have not yet paid my rent,” he said.
KRA's customer service confirmed that the platform was experiencing downtime.
“We are experiencing downtime, but customers should keep trying to download their invoices. By the end of the day, it should be back to normal,” a customer service agent said in a telephone interview on Monday.
eTIMS, or the Electronic Tax Invoice Management System, is a KRA platform designed to digitise the generation, validation and transmission of tax invoices.
The system was introduced in 2023 as part of efforts to strengthen tax compliance and improve the monitoring of business transactions. Taxpayers are required to generate electronic tax invoices for eligible transactions and expense claims.
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