Recycled tax relief and politics of pretence to hoodwink voters

The government is selling Kenyans a lie, sugarcoated for elections. It says an “amendment” will exempt 1.5 million workers earning Sh30,000 and below from PAYE. Superficially, it sounds generous.

But the tax code exposes the truth: Kenyans earning below about Sh24,000 were already effectively PAYE-exempt through existing tax bands and personal relief. Nothing new has happened. This is rebranding, old policy dressed up as fresh generosity and political theatre.

Tax policy is not about headlines; it is about honesty, fairness, predictability, and long-term well-being. A government easing the burden would explain what has changed, what has not, and who benefits. Instead, Kenyans are sold “historic relief” while reality is familiar: incomes shrink, prices rise, and the state extracts more from households than ever.

What has actually happened is a small upward shift of the exemption ceiling, marketed as a breakthrough. But moving the line by a few thousand shillings hardly changes life for low-income workers facing inflation, stagnant wages, rising fuel costs, punitive consumption taxes, housing levy deductions, and expanding statutory contributions. The question is not whether PAYE is 0% or 10%, but whether salaries last beyond the third week of the month.

On that front, this policy delivers little. Even the touted cut of PAYE from 30% to 25% for those earning up to Sh50,000 is hardly benevolence. It follows aggressive taxation, revenue extraction, and new levies that hollowed out household incomes. What is presented as relief is a partial refund of pain inflicted. Giving back a fraction of what was taken is not reform; it is damage control. The pattern is political. Governments facing eroding legitimacy repackage, rename, and re-announce; they do not restructure or redistribute. What matters is optics, narrative management for rallies and news and an illusion of a “listening government” without structural change.

In Kenya, the routine is: impose heavy taxation, wait for anger to peak, then sell modest adjustments as historic concessions, expecting gratitude even as the net outcome leaves people worse off. This is not fiscal governance; it is emotional manipulation.

True tax reform is structural, not cosmetic. It asks who bears the burden, who benefits from exemptions, and whether the system promotes growth or suffocates it. A reform agenda would widen personal relief, simplify tax bands, reduce punitive marginal rates on low and middle incomes, and eliminate distortive levies that disproportionately harm the poor. It would grow incomes through productivity, investment, and job creation, not squeeze shrinking salaries through ever-expanding statutory deductions. Yet Kenyans are told to celebrate what existed and applaud what barely changes life. The deeper problem is moral and economic: taxation is about trust. Citizens comply when the system is fair, transparent, and reciprocal, when public money becomes healthcare, education, infrastructure, and social protection. When taxation is extractive, opaque, and unaccompanied by public goods, it becomes coercion.

Kenyans are not confused. While PAYE headlines are celebrated, fuel prices remain punitive, electricity costs climb, food inflation squeezes budgets, and indirect taxes devour what direct relief pretends to restore. Deductions for housing levies, social security, and health insurance, however justified in theory, have arrived amid stagnant wages and rising unemployment, leaving many workers poorer even when nominal tax rates fall.

Kenyans deserve better than this politics of pretence: a tax system that protects the vulnerable, rewards productivity, supports enterprise, and funds public goods without crushing households; reform that is real, structural, and courageous; and honesty about what has changed, what has not, and why. They deserve leadership that treats taxation as shared prosperity, not political messaging.

A democracy cannot survive on recycled policies sold as gifts, nor on governance reduced to applause-seeking announcements. Tax justice is found in pay slips that stretch to month-end, in public services that work, and in honesty, not hoodwinking.