NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 1 – The High Court has halted the implementation of Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) tax on motor automobiles pending the listening to and willpower of a petition towards it.
The up to date Current Retail Selling Price (CRSP) schedule for used motor automobiles was set to take impact on July 1.
The order stays each the round dated May 22, 2025 (Ref: C&BC/HQ/1) titled “Forwarding of the Updated CRSP List” and a public discover dated May 30, 2025, revealed on KRA’s web site.
According to the petitioner, the brand new CRSP checklist was launched with out significant public participation, in violation of constitutional necessities beneath Article 10 and Article 201, which mandate inclusive engagement in legislative and public finance processes.
While KRA said that it had consulted “stakeholders,” the petitioner contends that such consultations had been narrowly confined to automotive sellers, excluding customers and most of the people.
The courtroom has been urged to compel KRA to provide proof of the identities of those so-called stakeholders and particulars of the engagement course of.
Further, the petition claims that the CRSP schedule—issued by KRA’s Commissioner for Customs and Border Control and Commissioner General—derives its authority from Section 122 and the Fourth Schedule of the EAC Customs Act and is due to this fact topic to Article 94(6) of the Constitution.
Consequently, the CRSP qualifies as a statutory instrument beneath the Statutory Instruments Act, and will have complied with procedural necessities together with laying earlier than Parliament, which it allegedly did not do.
The petitioner additionally challenges the 30-day implementation discover, terming it unreasonable, arbitrary, and a violation of Article 47 of the Constitution, which ensures truthful administrative motion.
It is argued that the brief discover interval fails to account for the legit expectations of importers and members of the general public who positioned automobile cargo orders beneath the present 2019 CRSP schedule.
Citing business observe, the petition highlights {that a} typical automobile import course of—spanning procurement, delivery, and clearance—can take between 3 to six months.
As such, the abrupt shift dangers unfairly penalizing importers who had already dedicated funds primarily based on the earlier valuation framework.
The courtroom suspended the implementation of the revised CRSP checklist till July 17, 2025, and directed that the appliance, petition, and all associated paperwork be served on the respondents.
“The impugned CRSP was hurriedly assembled and is pervaded with elementary errors and omissions that impugn its certainty as a tax base. For occasion, it omits and/or fails to supply for a number of automobile fashions which can be Imported into the nation by automotive sellers and particular person prospects. In different situations, it erroneously matches automotive fashions with non-existent options together with mistaken gas varieties, chassis numbers and attaches totally different values to the identical automotive mannequin. Some of those automobiles are already within the excessive seas enroute to the nation,” reads courtroom papers.
