Digitalising Tax, The Kenyan Way : The Travels and Translations of ITax in Kenya

Sammanfattning: Kenya, as with other developing countries, has joined the global bandwagon of using digital technologies to increase domestic revenues. Within the new strategies, lie great potential in achieving sustainable development, however, the shift is happening quite rapidly and has been made mandatory within a short period of time. The implications of this shift have prompted this research to analyse how it has shaped tax practices in Kenya. This study addresses the implementation strategies of an e-filings system, ITax in Kenya that was piloted, adopted and made mandatory in a short period of time. ITax as demonstrated in this dissertation has led to complexities including shifting tax expertise from tax consultants to information and communication technology (ICT) experts. I analyse what is at stake for all actors involved from those who commission its use to the taxpayers. I also ana-lyse whether Kenya was prepared economically or infrastructurally for this shift. The outset for this dissertation is models like ITax interface with the different interests of social/institutional worlds as it travels and gets translated generating complex and unintended effects. This study therefore combines postcolonial and technoscientific approaches in order to understand how the current implementation of ITax is connected to colonial development and fiscal rationale. Methodologically, this dissertation contributes to the socio-cultural perspectives to studying tax.