A new study has found evidence of a $28m tax discrepancy in British American Tobacco Kenya's books.
The Kenyan Revenue Authority (KRA) on Wednesday, 20 February 2024, announced it would investigate evidence of a $28-million tax discrepancy involving British American Tobacco Kenya's (BAT Kenya) declared profits between 2017 and 2018.
Analysis by the University of Bath's Tobacco Control Research Group, the Investigative Desk, and Tax Justice Network Africa, has shown a 9.6-billion Kenyan shilling ($93-million) discrepancy for which "the company did not provide a plausible explanation".
The Bath study conducted an analysis of six years of BAT Kenya annual reports compared with production data the company had supplied to KRA. What they found indicated "a massive discrepancy of millions of cigarettes between what the company produced and said it sold".
Authors Tim Luimes, Mirjam van der Puijl and editor-in-chief Marcel Metze concluded this "could indicate tax avoidance or evasion of up to 28-million USD in profit tax".
The Bath University report noted that the discrepancy resulted in the revenue of BAT Kenya "being substantially lower than what it could have earned based on what it produced. But what exactly happened to these millions of cigarette packs, remains a mystery".
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