The National Assembly has exempted Kenyan artists from the 25% excise tax proposed in the 2021 Finance Act.
The chairman of the finance committee Gladys Wanga presented the changes to parliament on Thursday evening.
Ms. Wanga said artists received very little revenue from recall and recall Skiza songs, even with cellular operators taking the lion’s share.
“Artists in this country sweat blood to record and play their music and they are never rewarded. The reward is very little compared to the investments these young artists make,” said Ms. Wanga.
In her amendments, the representative of Homa Bay Woman proposed a tax exemption for excise duty services provided by mobile operators in Kenya when a callback number is sold to a subscriber.
Copyright Act
While Ms. Wanga criticizes the current formula for dividing recall and recall tune proceeds, she also announces plans to amend the copyright law so that artists receive the majority of the proceeds from the sale of recall tunes.
“In the current sharing formula, the artist receives 16% of one shilling, taxation is 25%, while Safaricom receives 51%. I undertake to make an amendment to copyright law so that the sharing agreement is done this way” that the Artists get the bulk of it, “she said.
The formula for sharing callback and callback tunes has been a touchy subject with artists pitting against service providers and industry regulators.
In April of this year, comedian Eddie Butita publicly complained after receiving only Sh86 as income from his single “Kidesign”.