Members of the Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) and The Investigative Desk claim to have found a $93 million discrepancy in revenue reported by British American Tobacco Kenya for 2017 and 2018, which would result in $28 million in missing tax revenue for the country. According to the report published by the University of Bath’s TCRG, government documents and data on cigarette consumption and prices found numerous contradictions, including “millions of cigarette packs unaccounted for, leading to [missing] revenues and therefore tax that would normally be expected.”
“In the absence of a convincing explanation, this looks like tax avoidance and potentially evasion,” Leopoldo Parada, Reader in Tax Law at King’s College London, said.
“BAT Kenya firmly rejects all the allegations made regarding the discrepancy between its published financial disclosures and data,” a spokesperson for the company said in a statement. “The company pays all taxes in line with applicable laws.”
The report authors have asked the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) if they will investigate, but have not yet received a response.
