Stories that begin with something visible and ask what larger system is quietly being revealed.
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒎: A tyre trader postponed KRA's audit for nine months: the director was busy, then away for the holidays, then at the gym. KRA stopped waiting, assessed from customs and bank data, and the High Court upheld KSh 31.5m.
Tax and financial judgement · 18 Oct 2026 · 4 min read · Paid
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒎: A scrap dealer bought in bulk with money from smaller dealers, passed through its own bank account. KRA taxed the flows as Joyland's business. With no ledger showing whose money was whose, the Tribunal upheld KSh 87m.
Tax and financial judgement · 18 Oct 2026 · 4 min read · Paid
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒎: KRA attributed purchases to Semberia Enterprises and reconstructed its sales. The retailer challenged the transactions with invoices, bank records and reconciliations, overturning the assessment when the authority failed to substantiate its competing account.
Tax and financial judgement · 18 Oct 2026 · 4 min read · Paid
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒎: A construction firm paid its casual labourers through David Luketelo Sifuma's bank account and filed withholding tax against his PIN. KRA billed him KSh 5m. He lost on a deadline, and the Tribunal still found him a way back.
Tax and financial judgement · 17 Oct 2026 · 5 min read · Paid
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒎: KRA taxed the money that passed through Francis Mugwi Kamau's accounts as if all of it were income. The Tax Appeals Tribunal ruled that a bank statement shows cash moving, and that KRA had to weigh his explanations for it.
Tax and financial judgement · 17 Oct 2026 · 5 min read · Paid
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒎: The High Court ruled that a payment company moving money for merchants supplies an exempt financial service. Ten months later, the Finance Act 2026 taxed that service.
Tax and financial judgement · 17 Oct 2026 · 4 min read · Paid
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒎: Mary Wanjiru Kinyua said KSh 413m in deposits were company sales and loans. Without the paperwork, the courts treated the money as hers, and the one point she won was worth a rounding error.
Tax and financial judgement · 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒎: The Tax Appeals Tribunal held the Commissioner to a VAT exemption it had confirmed three times. The company won. Its board should never have needed to.
Tax and financial judgement · 17 Oct 2026 · 6 min read
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒎: The bank won by showing how a KSh1.31 billion adjustment moved between its accounts without producing income or a tax deduction. Its records were already before KRA. The dispute survived because the authority misread them.
Tax and financial judgement · 17 Oct 2026 · 7 min read · Paid
KenGen has built Olkaria into one of the world’s largest geothermal power hubs, but the stalled $1 billion Microsoft-G42 data-centre project exposed a problem that now requires political commitment, regulatory coordination and a financing model built for hyperscale demand. Kenya must find a way to deliver hundreds of megawatts quickly, finance dedicated transmission and make technology buyers carry the cost without pushing more risk onto the Treasury or household power bills.
Policy & Regulation · 16 Oct 2026 · 9 min read
In 2019, Redmond came to Nairobi hunting for scarce software developers. Seven years later, a $190bn compute bill and a three-gigawatt grid bottleneck have turned Africa’s premier coding centre into a government sales account.
Africa Business Stories · 15 Oct 2026 · 11 min read
Licences that take months, rules that leave founders guessing and few safe places to test new products. FINTAK’s work with innovators and regulators across Africa points to seven fixes. Kenya’s draft payments law has just taken up one of them.
Policy & Regulation · 14 Oct 2026 · 6 min read