The passage of the Finance Bill 2025 has entered its homestreach, even as the National Assembly Committee on Finance and National Planning commenced public hearings on the Bill in counties.
On Tuesday, June 3, 2025, the National Assembly Committee on Finance and National Planning was in Busia and Migori Counties where the residents gave their views on the Bill.
These hearings will directly inform Kenya’s fiscal policy for 2025/2026, and digital finance regulation.
On Wednesday, June 4, 2025, the committee will be collecting views from members of the public in Nandi County.
“This is not an exercise in futility, it’s a very important exercise. This Finance Bill is a proposal to the National Assembly and it has to undergo the necessary legislative process including public participation to become law,” the committee’s vice chairman, Benjamin Langat, told the media.
“I want to implore the public to desist from looking at the Finance Bill in isolation. When you tell us to employ junior secondary school teachers, or even more nurses, the money to cater for that must come from somewhere. This Bill is the instrument we use to raise such funds.”
The committee has so far received views from all quarters including private citizens, manufacturers, importers, professionals and professional bodies, the youth and foreign taxpayers.
The committee spent a week in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, gathering views from Kenyans on the tax laws that will define the tax policy for the country in the next 12 months.
The bill seeks to amend various tax laws, including the Income Tax Act (ITA), the VAT Act, 2013 (VAT Act), the Excise Duty Act, the Tax Procedures Act, 2015 (TPA), the Fees and Levies Act, and the Stamp Duty Act.
In its submission, the Amnesty International urged the National Assembly to conduct a thorough, rights-based review of the Finance Bill (2025) to ensure that the Bill serves its legitimate purpose of revenue generation while simultaneously uplifting the financial condition, dignity and rights of all Kenyans, and especially those grappling most with poverty and exclusion.
“The proposals outlined in the Finance Bill 2025 come at a time when Kenya’s poverty rate stands at 39.8%. Over 20.2 million individuals live below the poverty line and cannot meet the cost of their basic needs. 17.4 million of the 20.8 million people in employment last year were employed in the informal sector. Put another way, more than 83% of Kenyan workers today lack the protection offered by the Employment Act. Many Kenyans work under poor employment conditions, have limited social or job security and are very vulnerable to exploitative labour practices,” Amnesty International stated.
“Kenya’s debt repayments—projected at Ksh996 billion in FY 2024/25—remain the largest budget item, limiting funds for essential public services. With a 335% increase in debt since 2014, this burden poses a serious threat to economic and political stability and the realisation of constitutionally guaranteed human rights.”
“Given these conditions, the Government of Kenya must avoid retrogressive tax measures that ultimately impact most on vulnerable and marginalised populations. The 2025 Finance Act must ensure that tax models adopted by Parliament and implemented by the Executive are rights-compliant, protecting Kenyans from inequity and discrimination while maximising available resources to ensure the maximum realisation of human rights.”
Finance Bill reforms
National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi outlined several reforms embedded in the bill including streamlining tax administration to eliminate ambiguities, lowering the digital asset tax to 1.5%, adjusting tax treatment on allowances, pensions, and gratuities, improving KRA’s efficiency through IT integration, rolling out transparent procurement via e-GP from July 1, 2025, implementing zero-based budgeting with full integration into IFMIS and zeducing zero-rated items to minimize tax refund claims.
The National Assembly Finance Committee Chair, Kuria Kimani, on Tuesday, April 8, 2025, emphasised the importance of making public participation more inclusive and effective.
“One of the conversations we are having as the national assembly and as a department of budget committee and national planning is that the way public participation has always been carried out is so traditional, where we thought that we scored very greatly, is calling people for a town hall meeting at KICC,” Kuria Kimani said.
“The question is how many people are willing to leave their workplaces to come to KICC and give their views? Perhaps we need to have a way of taking the feedback we get from our social media platforms as actual, active public participation. We are not saying you need to write an email.”
Read: Mbadi Seeks to Rebuild Trust On Finance Bill Via Open Dialogue With Youth
>>> Cabinet Approves Finance Bill 2025, Proposes Amendments To Ksh4.3 Trillion Budget
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