Airbnb Rejecting a Valid Tax Identification Number - KENYA

[Shiro32]

Hi Everyone 

Airbnb is suddenly rejecting my Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) Personal Identification Number — the country's taxpayer ID, as invalid (despite me trying to remove and upload it several times) , even though the PIN is active and confirmed legal by KRA. The number has been formerly accepted by Airbnb, which used to issued Kenyan withholding tax certificates 

Has anyone experienced this?  a previously accepted tax ID suddenly being rejected, please let me know how you resolved this issue …... and how long resolution took….

Chatted with them and had a call with one of their customer support agents but it doesn’t seem to have been sorted? will I get back the 15% extra withheld after the issue is sorted?

Anyone Facing the same issue and can assist me ?

[Gloria1357]

I am experiencing the same. It suddenly got rejected despite being valid. Now, I think my issue might be that my KRA PIN is under my business name, not my given name. That may be the mismatch. I was going to try to update my Airbnb name to reflect my business name but I am not sure that will work either, or if Airbnb will do that, as they have to verify it against my government ID. 

[Rebecca]

Hi @Shiro32 and @Gloria1357 👋

I wanted to share that we've had a thread related to this issue recently: Airbnb Rejecting a Valid Tax Identification Number – Has Anyone Experienced This? and host @Sylvia-Akinyi0 shared this: 

Update

Here's the latest response I have from them. Fingers crossed that it'll be resolved.

An update on your PIN verification

We’re writing because the PIN you entered couldn’t be verified with the Kenya Revenue Authorities (KRA), so your withholding tax rate was updated to 20%.

We found an issue that caused some hosts who entered correct details to fail verification. We're fixing it now, and expect all hosts with correct details to be verified—and switched to a 5% withholding rate—by mid-September.

If your withholding was at 20% because of this issue, we'll refund you the difference.

What you need to do
If the name on your Airbnb account matches your PIN registration with KRA exactly (including any middle names), you don't need to do anything—you'll be verified automatically.
If it doesn't match, update your legal name in your Airbnb KYC details so it matches KRA's records exactly.
You can check what KRA has on file for your PIN at the KRA PIN Checker website.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your patience while we make this right.

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I hope this helps!