Recently, His Royal Highness, the Emir of Kano published details of his salary for April 2017 on social media. Sanusi uploaded the information via his verified Instagram account, in a bid to demonstrate the actual amount he earns as salary on a monthly basis.

One thing that caught my attention is the tax the Emir pays on his salary. His gross salary shows ₦1,312,500 while his tax is ₦65,625. This means our Emir pays barely 5% of his monthly emolument as PAYE tax.

This is a far cry from the actual tax payable by an individual on a monthly income of ₦1,312,500. Based on the provisions of the tax laws, a tax payer on monthly income of ₦1,312,500 should be paying about 17.57% as PAYE tax. And this has led to the question: Do our public/political office holders pay tax in Nigeria?

I watched the clips of the presentation of our Honourable Minister of Finance at “the Platform”. During her presentation, the honorable minister gave a lot of statistics just to point to the need to improve on our tax collection drive in Nigeria. She mentioned that very few people in Nigeria pay as much as ₦20m in taxes in the year 2016, despite the number of millionaires we have around. Having said this, can the Minister even vouch that the right amount of taxes are paid by herself, her colleagues and other political office holders?

In the same vein, our internal revenue services across different states of the Federation have been strengthening their tax collection drive, and are always at loggerhead with private bodies especially to ensure right amount of taxes are paid by their employees and individuals like you and I. We hear various jingles on our radios and televisions every day of the week on the need to pay our taxes. Some of them even go to the extent of disrupting the activities of business owners in the name of collecting tax for government. Many a times, "crazy" tax bills are given to private bodies with a mandate that payment is made immediately. However, many of our public office holders do not even pay theirs and those that even pay (like our Emir) are not even paying the right amount.

As such, there is need for government to ensure that the same level of benchmark is applicable as far as the tax compliance status of our political/public office holders is concerned. CHANGE should actually begin with them. Public/political office holders should actually be made to pay the right amount of tax.

If you ask me na who i go ask too ooo

Are they not the tax collector?

littlewonders:
Are they not the tax collector?

Yes they are o, but the tax collector also collects salary, from which tax should be paid just like every other citizen.

Pabodan:


Yes they are o, but the tax collector also collects salary, from which tax should be paid just like every other citizen.

Let's think like real Nigerians now; 'hypothetically'. If you were in charge of grouping cash for a project, will you be strongly involve financially?

littlewonders:


Let's think like real Nigerians now; 'hypothetically'. If you were in charge of grouping cash for a project, will you be strongly involve financially?

Hummm, I get you actually, but in this case, the same law applicable to both you and I is also applicable to political office holders. I believe in leadership by example and also, I think it will be a bit easier to persuade me to obey a rule, when you are able to demonstrate to me that you are doing same.

This is one of the reasons why voluntary tax compliance is thriving in some other jurisdictions, because the leaders are leading per example. That is my point actually, that change should actually begin with them