From Fiscal Subjects to Fiscal Citizens: Taxation, State Formation, and Constitutional Legitimacy in Kenya, 1920–2025

Taxation has long been one of the most enduring institutions through which states exercise authority, mobilise resources, and negotiate relationships with citizens. In Kenya it has remained politically contested from the colonial period to the present despite profound constitutional and institutional reform. Existing scholarship has examined colonial taxation extensively as a mechanism of labour coercion, settler accumulation, and revenue extraction, but has paid comparatively little attention to its long-term influence on state legitimacy and fiscal citizenship. This article addresses that gap by tracing how colonial taxation shaped the evolution of state-citizen relations from the consolidation of British rule in the 1920s to contemporary debates over the Finance Bill of 2024. Drawing on archival records, government reports, oral testimony, parliamentary debates, and secondary historical literature, the study adopts a historical-institutionalist approach to trace the changing political functions of taxation over a century. It argues that colonial taxation was never merely a fiscal instrument but a mechanism of state formation, administrative expansion, labour mobilisation, and political control. Many of these institutions were inherited and substantially reformed after independence, yet their legacies continue to shape public perceptions of taxation and government accountability. The article contends that debates over the Finance Acts and the Finance Bill of 2024 illustrate an evolving conception of fiscal citizenship, in which taxpayers increasingly tie compliance to transparency, accountability, equitable service delivery, and meaningful public participation. It concludes that the sustainability of Kenya's fiscal system rests not only on expanding domestic revenue mobilisation but also on strengthening the reciprocal relationship between taxation, legitimacy, and public trust.
Keywords: colonial taxation; fiscal citizenship; state formation; fiscal legitimacy; Kenya; public finance; governance

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