The new taxes set off the first popular tax protests mobilised by opposition parties. The Finance Bill 2024 prescribed yet more tax pain to fund the KShs 3.9 trillion (US$30.5 billion) budget for 2024/25. The tabling of the Finance Bill 2024 in parliament sparked one of the broadest protest actions in Kenya’s history. The 2024 tax protests coincided with the conclusion of our research into the 2023 protests and the aftermath. Our ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and focus group discussions give us a way to see the context of this second wave of Kenyan tax protests.
