Starting this month, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) will begin collecting a 3 percent tax on digital content providers.
The tax applies to individuals and business owners who generate income from online content creation, including sponsorships, content monetization, and advertising revenue.

The government, according to local media reports, is trying to take advantage of the ever-expanding online ecosystem, which has seen a surge of content creators on various platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and social media, Instagram, blogs and many others, hence the decision to impose the tax.
The Finance Bill 2023 had initially planned to impose a 15 percent tax on the takings of content creators, but after citizen complaints the tax was revised and reduced first to 5 percent and finally to 3. The Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) defines the tax on digital services as anything that is identifiable, digitally created and stored and has or provides value.

The tax, which will be levied every 20th of the month, has the potential to increase production costs and reduce the profits of those who operate it.
As is often the case, it is not yet clear what the method of collection will be and on what basis it will be done, since in the absence of a reliable network of controls, it should be based on self-declaration, and hardly in the world when one can avoid declaring a profit, even a small one, without the obligation to show evidence, one does so.

What's more, in Kenya the world of influencers, tik-tokers and the like, also involves very low-income youth from the slums who, through skits, attention-grabbing videos and stories, are trying to make ends meet in a different way than those experienced previously or by their older brothers and sisters. As of today, they, too, are part of society, and their pastime that brings in two pennies is for all intents and purposes considered a job. On which not only the multinational social media corporations eat but also the government of the country in which they live.