26/05/2026
Lucas Waithaka Gitere was a landlord in Nakuru County.
He owned two properties, collected rent from his tenants, and by his own account had been trying to do the right thing by KRA for years.
In 2015 he had even written to the Kenya Revenue Authority requesting permission to file his returns on an annual basis rather than monthly, explaining his financial position clearly — he had taken out a loan at Equity Bank of Kshs 7,305,695, his monthly repayment was Kshs 241,665, and his monthly rental income was Kshs 184,430.
He was a landlord carrying more debt than income, trying to navigate his tax obligations as honestly as he could.
KRA never responded to his letter. He assumed silence meant consent, continued filing annual returns, and paid what he calculated he owed. For 2016 he paid and filed. For 2017 he paid and filed. He thought the matter was settled.
Then KRA came back with an assessment he did not recognise. The Authority had conducted an investigation into his affairs covering 2016 and 2017, and the investigation had turned up a number that stopped him cold.
KRA's officers had found that Lucas Waithaka Gitere had 34 KPLC electricity meters registered in his name. From that single piece of information, the Authority drew a straight line to a conclusion: 34 meters meant 34 rental houses. And 34 rental houses meant significantly more rental income than he had been declaring.
On that basis, KRA issued an assessment of Kshs 803,311, comprising principal tax of Kshs 644,248.80 and penalties of Kshs 34,212.44. The assessment did not engage with his actual rental income figures, his loan repayments, or his filed returns. It was built entirely on the number of electricity meters attached to his name in the KPLC database.
Lucas objected. He explained that he owned two properties, not 34 rental units, that his returns had been filed for the disputed years, and that he had previously written to KRA about his filing arrangement. He submitted documents at the objection stage as required under Section 59 of the Tax Procedures Act. KRA rejected the objection and confirmed the assessment in full, taking the position that his Notice of Objection was not supported by adequate documentation and that he had therefore failed to discharge the burden of proof.
The dispute went to the Tax Appeals Tribunal, which allowed his appeal on 3rd December 2021. KRA was dissatisfied and appealed to the High Court.
Justice A. Mabeya considered the matter carefully.
The starting point was Section 24 of the Tax Procedures Act, which gives the Commissioner broad authority to assess a taxpayer's liability using any information available.
KRA was entitled to use the KPLC meter data as the basis for raising an assessment. The law does not restrict the Commissioner to information that the taxpayer has voluntarily provided. Electricity meters, water connections, title deed records, vehicle registrations, business permit databases — all of these are the kind of third-party information that KRA can and does use to identify taxpayers who may be under-declaring income. In that sense, the KPLC meter approach was legally permissible as an investigative tool.
But the court found a critical problem in what happened next.
Once Lucas filed his Notice of Objection and submitted documents, the evidential burden shifted. The pendulum, as the court described it, needed to swing. If KRA believed his documents were inadequate or his explanation was wrong, the Authority was obligated to request specific additional information, identify the gaps, and give him a genuine opportunity to respond. That is what the objection process exists for.
Instead, KRA confirmed the assessment without requesting further documentation and without demonstrating that the material he had submitted was either incorrect or insufficient. The assessment had been raised on the assumption that 34 meters equalled 34 rental houses, but as the respondent pointed out and as KRA's own officers had apparently observed during a site visit, some of those houses with meters were unoccupied. The assumption was never tested against the reality on the ground.
The court also noted that KRA had never responded to his 2015 letter requesting guidance on his filing format, and that silence in those circumstances had to be taken as consent. A taxpayer who writes to the Authority seeking direction, receives no response, and proceeds on a reasonable assumption is not the same as a taxpayer who ignores the law. Justice Mabeya found no error in the Tribunal's conclusion that the objection decision had been issued prematurely. KRA's appeal was dismissed with costs.
The KPLC meter finding at the heart of this case deserves to sit with every landlord in Kenya for a moment.
KRA does not need you to confess your rental income to know that you have tenants. It has access to KPLC connection data, and every meter registered in your name is a data point in a system that the Authority can query at any time. If you have 10 meters, 20 meters, or 34 meters registered in your name across various properties, KRA can see that.
Whether those meters correspond to occupied units generating rental income, vacant units awaiting tenants, units under renovation, or units occupied by family members who pay nothing — KRA cannot tell from the database alone. But the database gives them enough to raise an assessment, and once that assessment is raised, the burden of proof under Section 56 of the Tax Procedures Act falls on you to show it is wrong.
Lucas Waithaka Gitere won his case, but he won it on procedural grounds — because KRA issued its objection decision prematurely without properly engaging with the documents he had submitted. He did not win because KPLC meters are an illegitimate basis for investigation.
They are a legitimate basis.
What saved him was a combination of his own paper trail, his 2015 letter demonstrating genuine compliance intent, and KRA's failure to follow due process at the objection stage. Remove any one of those factors and the outcome might have been entirely different.
If you are a landlord with multiple properties and multiple KPLC meters registered in your name, the practical message is straightforward.
File your rental income returns accurately and on time, declaring every property that is generating income.
For properties that are vacant, under renovation, or not generating income, keep documentation that explains why — a contractor's report, a tenancy agreement that has lapsed, a photograph with a date, anything that establishes the position on the ground. If KRA ever raises an assessment based on meter counts or any other indirect method, respond to the objection process properly, submit your documents fully, and keep proof that you submitted them.
And if KRA fails to engage with what you provide and confirms the assessment anyway, know that the courts have been clear on this point. Due process is not optional. The pendulum of proof must be allowed to swing, and if KRA refuses to let it, the Tribunal and the High Court will notice.
