Cinemas in Kenya and the Entertainment Tax

                                                       

The sample tickets from the Metropole Cinema (above) and Shan Cinema (below) provide the statement 'Including Tax'. This refers to the entertainment tax. Cinemas in Kenya were subject to an Entertainment Tax of 10%  in the 1970's and 1980's. It is interesting to note that the government implemented a complicated system to ensure it received the tax. The system was not as simple as just reporting 'sales x 10%' as in many VAT jurisdictions today. 

Cinemas had to print their tickets way in advance, and then store the tickets at the local tax office. I had the opportunity to accompany a couple of staff members from the Regal Cinema, Mombasa. We made  the trip to the local tax office to pick up ticket booklets when the current stock of tickets booklets in the cinema office was running low.  Such trips were made monthly or more often when cinema attendance spiked due to popular movies being screened.

Cinema staff had to show up at the tax office with a cheque on hand. The tax had to be paid in advance!. The cinemas therefore had to estimate demand for the next little while for each ticket category. They also had to estimate how much cash they could afford to dish out!!  

At the time of my visit there were 4 ticket categories. These were common to all Mombasa cinemas. Balcony tickets in the mid 1970s were 6 shs. Stalls had 3 ticket categories. These were 4.80, 3.60 and 2.40. Management had to estimate the expected demand for each category and crunch up the total entertainment tax.

I remember my visit well. On a particularly hot afternoon we walked from the Regal Cinema on Digo road, down Nkrumah road towards Old town. The shop awnings kept the hot sun away from us. As we were avid movie buffs, we paused outside the Kenya cinema to view the posters of upcoming releases. Having made a mental note of the competition and what to watch next we continued down Nkrumah road, past the Banki Kuu ya Kenya building and entered the white colonial building on the other side of the roundabout which was just before old town. 

A tax official met us. After some pleasantries he accepted our cheque, He then led us down a corridor to a large stock room. The room was lined with wooden shelves. Each shelf was piled with cinema tickets.  The shelves had labels identifying each Mombasa cinema. These included Kenya, Naaz, Moons, Drive In, Chox, and the Regal cinema. 

At the end of the shelves we found a wooden table and 2 chairs. The tax official brought the applicable tickets to the table. Each ticket booklet had 100 tickets. They were all in numerical order. You can see the numbers on the top right of the sample tickets from Metropole and Shan cinema (above).

The tax official provided a government stamp (holder) and stamp pad that was refilled with blue ink. The stamp holder basically provided the date and a statement that said something like 'tax paid'. We then spent the next hour stamping each ticket!!.

On completion of stamping all the tickets we packed all the ticket booklets in a box and made our way back to Regal. The task that afternoon took a good 3-4 hours!!  

Interestingly the sample ticket from the Avalon cinema (see below) in Dar-es-salaam has a government stamp similar to a postage stamp. This system was not followed in Kenya.

Also note that the sample tickets (see above) from the 2 Nairobi cinemas do not have a government stamp indicating tax was paid. Perhaps they had a different system in Nairobi. Or perhaps these particular tickets were issued without paying entertainment tax!. Staff, owners and cinema patrons had all sorts of ingenious ways to bypass the tax man and in fact avoid paying anything. But that is a topic for another day!