13/05/2026
Imagine you run a cereals shop in your local estate. You sell rice, maize, beans, and cooking oil. Customers come, pay in cash or through mobile money, and your bank account grows month after month. You are busy stacking sacks and counting coins, but you never file a single tax return. When the Kenya Revenue Authority sends you a gentle reminder, you tear it up. When they send a demand notice, you throw it in the bin. You tell yourself, “I am too small for the taxman to notice. Let me just hide behind my sacks of rice.” That is exactly what Mohamed Ali Isaack, a real rice trader in Nairobi, told himself for five long years.
Mohamed Ali Isaack ran his cereals business from 2013 to 2017. He never filed income tax returns. He ignored every KRA message, every letter, every notice. Behind his tent of silence, he felt safe. But the taxman’s computers do not sleep. They traced over 25 million shillings flowing through Mohamed’s bank accounts. The Commissioner raised a default assessment of KShs 11,327,159 in unpaid income tax. Suddenly, the man who thought he was invisible was slapped with a bill that could buy a house. He panicked. He filed an objection, complaining that the KRA had relied too much on bank deposits and had ignored his business expenses. He even asked for a friendly meeting.
But here is where the cereals shop owner’s dream crumbles. When the KRA wrote to Mohamed on 12th October 2020 asking for a simple breakdown of his costs—just some receipts, a ledger, anything—he went silent again. The same man who had shouted “injustice” now had nothing to show. No books of account. No signed financial statements. No invoices for the rice he claimed to have bought. Behind his tent, his folder was empty. The Commissioner, left with no evidence, confirmed the entire assessment. Mohamed had to appeal to the Tax Appeals Tribunal.
At the Tribunal, the judges looked at Mohamed’s case and shook their heads. They quoted Section 56(1) of the Tax Procedures Act, which says the burden is on the taxpayer to prove a tax decision is wrong. They cited the Monaco Engineering case: a taxpayer must point to specific errors with documents, not just shout. Mohamed had brought nothing. He had not even replied to the KRA’s letter. On 22nd October 2021, the Tribunal dismissed his appeal and upheld every shilling of the KShs 11.3 million assessment.
So, you who run a cereals shop, listen carefully. . Ignoring their letters does not make tax go away—it only makes the final bill grow bigger. Keep your books. File your returns. Reply to every message. Because behind that tent of silence, there is no safety.. Do not be the next rice trader they write a story about.
