PAYE Returns (P10)

The P10 is the monthly return where an employer tells KRA what it paid its staff and how much PAYE it took off their pay. The file you upload to iTax is a ZIP, and this tool builds it for you.

• Who files: any employer that pays salaries, including a company with one director on the payroll.
• When: every month, by the 9th of the month after.
• What it covers: PAYE, the Affordable Housing Levy and the NITA levy, all on the same return.

• PIN: a KRA Personal Identification Number. The employer has one, and so does each employee.
• PAYE: Pay As You Earn, the income tax an employer takes off pay and sends to KRA.
• Gross pay: what the employee earned in the month before any deduction, benefits included.
• Taxable pay: gross pay after the deductions the law allows, such as NSSF and SHIF.
• SHIF and NSSF: the health and pension contributions taken from pay. Both lower taxable pay.
• Affordable Housing Levy: 1.5% of gross pay from the employee, and the employer pays the same again.
• NITA levy: Ksh 50 for each employee, each month.
• Lump sum, gratuity, arrears: payments outside the normal monthly salary.
• Fringe Benefit Tax: tax on a loan the employer gives an employee at less than the market interest rate.

• The employer's PIN.
• Each employee's PIN and full name.
• This month's payroll for each person: cash pay, any benefits, the deductions, and the PAYE you took off.
• Anything paid outside salary this month: a lump sum, gratuity or arrears.
• Any loan to an employee at a low interest rate.

Enter the employer PIN. Leave the type of return on Original for a normal month. Pick the first and the last day of the month the return covers; they must fall in the same month.

Answer Yes to the last question only if you paid a lump sum, gratuity or arrears, or gave a low-interest loan. Yes opens Sections C and D.

Add one record for each employee. Each record is folded into one line, so a long payroll stays easy to scan. Type a PIN and the name fills in if the employee is known.

The figures shown as results (gross pay, taxable pay, PAYE Tax) are worked out for you from what you type. Press Change beside one only if you need to replace it. Self Assessed PAYE Tax is the PAYE you actually took off. Section E adds those up, so it is the number that gets filed. If you took off exactly what the form works out, press Use PAYE Tax under the box.

One record for each one-off payment. Choose the type of payment first: the boxes that do not apply to it disappear, so what is left is what the payment needs.

A loan to an employee at less than the market rate is a benefit, and the employer pays tax on it. Enter the loan, what is still owed, and the rate charged. Rates go in per month, so divide a yearly rate by 12. The form works out the interest, the market interest, the benefit and the tax.

Nothing to type here. Every row says how it is made up, in the names of the rows it adds together.

The housing levy is what your employees paid plus your matching share of the same amount. If you choose to pay more, press Pay more housing levy and type the extra amount. It is added exactly as you type it.

The last step lists anything iTax would reject, grouped by section. Press one and you land on the box that needs fixing. Amber notes do not stop you, but read them: an employee whose PAYE is worked out but filed as 0 is the usual one.

Then Preview files to look at what will go to KRA, and Download ZIP.

Sign in to the iTax portal, open the PAYE return and upload the ZIP as it is. Do not unzip it. Keep the acknowledgement KRA gives you.

Filing is not paying. Generate a payment slip (PRN) for the PAYE under Payment Registration, and another under agency revenue for the housing levy and the NITA levy, as the clip shows.

Open the Simulate tab. Pick a finished sample return to look through, or answer a few questions and watch a return build itself. Either one can be saved as a real draft.