What actually happens when iTax goes down on filing day?

The system pauses, waits, retries on a backoff schedule, and resumes from exactly where it stopped when the portal recovers. No double-filing. No giving up.

What about the false PAYE arrears SMS my staff are getting from KRA?

That's the reconciliation gap on KRA's side — bulk PAYE not matching individual taxpayer accounts. Our audit pack shows exactly when each employee's PAYE was filed and acknowledged, so disputing it is a one-pager not a scavenger hunt.

Where does the payroll money sit?

With a regulated payment partner, not in our own accounts. We trigger the movement; we don't hold long-term cash.

Talk to us. We set up your KRA, NSSF, SHA, and NITA credentials securely, import your staff, and run a parallel payroll alongside your current process for the first cycle so you can sanity-check the numbers.

A Webzilla Creators product

Stop Watching iTax Crash At 11pm.

PAYE, SHIF, NSSF, Housing Levy, and NITA filed for you — through portal outages without filing twice. You approve once; staff get paid; KRA, NSSF, and SHA get paid; you get a clean audit pack.

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At a Glance

Domain: kazipay.co.ke
Category: fintech
Industry: hr payroll

If you've run payroll in Kenya, you know the fear of filing day. iTax goes down on the 9th. The Ombudsman has publicly asked KRA to waive penalties caused by their own portal failures. Sh 2,000 for an individual, Sh 20,000 for a business, plus 5% PAYE plus monthly interest — for a system you couldn't log into.

It's worse than that. You also need to file separately on the SHA Employer Portal (SHIF), on selfservice.nssf.or.ke (NSSF), on iTax for the Housing Levy, and on NITA for the industrial training levy. Four logins. Four sets of credentials. Four chances for one of them to be down. KaziPay analysts have flagged that around half of Kenyan SMEs have already been penalised for payroll errors — typos, the wrong PAYE band after the Housing Levy changed the taxable base, forgetting the employer's 1.5% match.

We automate the execution, not just the calculation. KaziPay calculates payroll the way you'd expect, then logs into iTax, SHA, NSSF, and NITA and files the returns for you. When iTax is down, it pauses. It tries again. It tries again. Without filing twice. Without giving up. When iTax is back, your filing completes from where it left off. You approve once; salaries go to staff via M-Pesa, taxes go to KRA/NSSF/SHA, and a clean PDF audit pack is waiting if KRA ever queries the return.

The Problem

What's broken today

iTax dies on filing day every year and the penalty letters arrive anyway
Four government portals (iTax, SHA, NSSF, NITA), four logins, four chances to fail
Employees you've already taxed are getting KRA arrears SMS because the matching is broken on KRA's side
Excel-based payroll is missing the 1.5% Housing Levy employer match — and you only find out at audit
After Housing Levy changed the taxable base, half the businesses around you have been penalised
Generic payroll software calculates the deductions and leaves the actual filing to your accountant at midnight

The Solution

How KaziPay fixes it

We file PAYE, SHIF, NSSF, Housing Levy, and NITA for you — and keep filing through portal outages without double-filing
One transfer in, salaries out to staff and statutory deductions out to government, in one run
Net-to-gross calculator built around the current Finance Act bands (including the Housing Levy effect on the taxable base)
Audit pack export — every PRN, e-slip, acknowledgement number — ready in one click when KRA queries
Maker-checker controls so the accountant prepares and the director approves with OTP
Self-service payslips and P9s — staff stop emailing you for them

Features

Everything you need, built in

Filings that survive iTax going down

When the portal is unavailable, the return waits and retries. When iTax is back, filing completes from where it left off. No double-filing.

All five filings, not just PAYE

PAYE, SHIF (SHA portal), NSSF (selfservice.nssf.or.ke), Housing Levy (P10 Sheet M on iTax), and NITA — handled in one run.

One transfer pays everyone

Send the lump sum once. We split: net salary to each staff member's M-Pesa, statutory deductions to the right government accounts.

Net-to-gross with current bands

Promised KES 50,000 take-home? Type 50,000. We back-solve gross, PAYE, NSSF, SHIF, and the 1.5% Housing Levy.

Defence pack on demand

Every filing, every receipt, every acknowledgement number — exported as a single PDF the moment KRA asks a question.

Maker-checker by default

Accountant prepares; director approves with one-time code. Append-only audit log of every action.

What you get out of it

You stop missing filing deadlines because of a portal you don't control
You stop paying the 1.5% Housing Levy match wrong because Excel doesn't know about it
When KRA queries you, you have a defensible paper trail — not a folder of screenshots

Who it's for

Small and growing businesses (5–50 staff) that can't justify a full-time HR/CPA
Foreign-owned businesses learning about iTax, NSSF, SHA, and NITA the hard way
Accounting firms tired of staying up until 1am every June 30

FAQs

Common questions

A small base monthly fee covering your first staff, plus a per-employee fee after that. Optional Compliance Guarantee add-on covers the fines if our system causes a late filing.

Want KaziPay for your business?

Webzilla Creators ships and supports KaziPay for Kenyan and pan-African organisations.

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