Many people are not familiar with this acronym. VAIDS is the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme just launched by the federal government.
The scheme is where u "Voluntarily" declare your assets and income and upon that you will be assessed and taxed. It was when the minister was explaining this scheme that she made the remark that beggars will be taxed.
I know she was speaking figuratively but i don't care, let PDP have their day. When the former president Goodluck said stealing is not corruption (which is true according to Nigerian constitution) APC and the south west turned it into a fiasco. So yes what goes around comes around; APC will tax beggars.

Though i kind of blame Davido for this development, you have an Ijebu man as your acting president yet you go about shouting 30 billion for akant; of course he will increase tax.

Jokes aside this new scheme is going to be the proverbial "last straw that broke the camels back". Let me highlight the Ills of this new scheme below.


The common man on the street will pay more

It is no news to you and i that the rich do not pay tax: not that they don't pay at all but they use every legal means to pay as little as possible, this is not only peculiar to Nigeria even trump bragged that he has his ways of avoiding tax. so if this scheme is brought to light it is you and i that will bear the brunt.
Many Nigerians are not aware of the tax implications of their actions, we want the best things in life, use two telephones, have big televisions and most time the average Nigerian spends more than he earns and lives above his means.
This scheme will make sure that all other income accrued to individuals will be highly scrutinized and the common man will end up bearing the full brunt of this law/scheme. The money bet9ja gives u will be taxed, baba ijebu money will be taxed, you pastor and alfa/ imam will be taxed. If beggars wont escape this scheme then who are you?

Nigeria has no moral right to tax its citizens more

Ask not what your country can do for you, omo that one na long thing. Me i go ask. Who Nigeria Epp?

We provide our own water, Lagos is forming mega city yet people still dig boreholes and water corporation is doing a very poor job

We provide our own security ;- almost every estate/ street in the country pays security fee ranging from 500 naira to 1 million. If a robbery is going on and you call the police they will come quickly; that is quickly after the robbers are far gone.At ikorodu people defend themselves from baddoo. Fulani herdsmen are kings of the ring even taking over abuja airport road. Let me not even go to boko haram

We provide our own power;- Fashols has convinced us without every reasonable doubt that power is rocket science. He has shown that a serious govt uses body language or body odor to increase power. Nigerians are left to the mercy of our Birla yamaha and Tiger generators. Generator fumes are Killing off families like the ones buried at port- hacourt.
The Nigerian govt has effectively removed every subsidy existing. We pay for roads indirectly cus every fuel litre u buy a percentage goes for road maintenance, yet we pay toll at lekki. there is no palliative from the Nigerian (APC) govt to the common man maybe Npower sha

Now after all these above we are still asked to "voluntarily" declare our earnings for more tax? you be the judge

Nigeria has enough resources

Countries that tax their citizens in this manner are countries that have little. Their people pay these taxes so that govt can run effectively. Nigeria is i think is the 6th largest oil producer in the world (abeg make una correct me if i am wrong i dont know everything)
Each of the 36 states of Nigeria has one mineral resource or the other. Why should a country so richly blessed by God still try to impose more taxes on its citizens? . You be the judge of that.
What is the guarantee that this new tax will not be squandered on Buhari's parking ticket and health bills?. You be the judge of that
Kayode Fayemi the minister for solid mineral is as silent as a mouse. he started well but i am not hearing from him lately hope all is well.


It will increase SARS harassment and other embarrassment

For those of us that know what people passed through in the hands of TAMA agents during fashola's regime. you will agree with me that this VAIDS is looking similar to what Lagos state govt planned. Fashola even went as far as implementing television and radio tax. When his enforcers came to my area omo na beating dem collect go back. They can investigate the "Voluntary" declarations and individuals will be slammed with "Based on Judgement" assessment. they will be like "chai see as u fresh, bobo ur tax na 100k"

Nigerians are complaining of the excesses of Federal special anti-robbery squad SARS, omo una neva see anything. once this scheme takes foot a policeman can just stop you ask you for evidence of tax compliance and then charge u with tax evasion. Nigeria as we know it is very good at spoiling foreign ideologies, take a look at our democracy and legislature. now tell me will this be any different?

I know the government is talking diversification of revenue; Fancy word but this is not how to go about it.

Corruption is our main problem, APC is just rustling the leaves and the root is strong. Like they told Jonathan in 2012 i also say to them Kill corruption and not Nigerians with tax.

@mind44 make people see this and make their contributions

We told them that APC ia association of past criminals but they refused to listen....

Those that voted APC will live to regret it and their children will suffer most......


Afonjas I hail oooo.

this mair commissioner thought Nigeria is Lagos, he should come and force us to declare the assets.

FakoMaybach1 you made some good points but I see things completely different from you.

Your first point was that the poor man on the street will pay a higher percentage of taxes than the rich. While this may be true in at the start of the scheme, in the long run things would change because younger upcoming politicians will fight for higher taxes on the rich to gain support from the masses. This is the case in about every developed country so I don't see why our own case would be different. Nigerians tend to think we are unique in our ways but we aren't. The term Dutch disease did not originate from nigeria, neither did kleptocracy, so our problems aren't unique, so also our solutions should not be unique.

You then talk about our extravagant lifestyle in a positive way. This lifestyle is a primary cause of corruption. If VAIDS changes our behavior of buying flashy things, future nigerians may not see the need to steal to live up to a false standard. In America and the UK, taxes are used to reduce smoking and environmental pollution. Taxes are not only used as a source of revenue for government, but also as a means of changing the behavior of the people, making them more civilized.

Next you talk about how government does nothing for the people. You are absolutely right. But then this begs the question, why do we have a government? In a democracy, people contribute their resources to enable the development of shared infrastructure and other beneficial services that the people individually would not be able to provide. In nigeria, the people contribute next to nothing. We have the lowest VAT in the region and a very low PAYEE rate (VAIDS doesn't go far enough to correct for this). the government gets money from crude and siphons it knowing no one will complain since the oil doesn't belong to any specific human being (Dutch disease). You said people in your area beat up tax collectors. Imagine if people in your area had agreed to pay taxes and then fashola fails to provide services? Do you think APC will still be in power in Lagos?

You then mention that nigeria has enough resources. A reliance on natural resources breeds corruption always and everywhere. Again nigeria's budget as a percentage of its gdp is smaller than that of Ghana. What this means is that government is not only actually underfunded but that nigerians have the ability to provide much more funding for the government. New York has a budget in the hundreds of billions where as nigeria has a budget of only 18 billion dollars.

(Please try your best to understand the following argument)
when a currency is devalued like the naira recently, people's purchasing power reduces. People may blame the government but no one protests or beats up officials because we believe the devaluation is as a result of external forces.
When government introduces taxes, people's purchasing power is also reduced but everyone holds the government accountable.
What causes devaluation by the way? When people want more dollars than is available for sale by the Central Bank, the central bank increases the price of the dollar so that it doesn't run out of dollars.
What if rather than raising the price of the dollar, the government raised taxes? People will not be able to purchase as many dollars as before the taxes were implemented, reducing the pressure on the central bank for dollars.
What I am trying to say is that taxes and devaluation have the same effect on the people. With taxes, however, the people hold their government to account.

To sum up my position, nigeria is one of the most unequal societies on earth. This has bred all sorts of social delinquents as boko haram, Niger delta militants etc. The only way to correct this situation is for government to provide better infrastructure and services to its people. The use of natural resources has resulted in monumental corruption (Dutch disease ), and no development. Taxes however will make the people hold the government to account leading to much needed development.

guy...o Oyel money no dey again to dey chop just get used to it, we all know the rich don't pay taxes cause na Dem dey sponsor bills for senate. you no fit sponsor bills that na why you dey nairaland dey cry, as for me this law is only for those living in the Zoo.

trillville:
FakoMaybach1 you made some good points but I see things completely different from you.

Brother you are an intellectual. Your opposing argument is laced with finesse.
But brother the govt has to earn my trust first before pushing for my money. If the squandered the little oil money why wont the squander this. You and i both know that oil cannot compete with efficient taxation. They have to take the first step and we will meet them halfway, let them reduce their salaries, declare their assets before they ask me to sacrifice more.
This is a serious issue we need more contribution and other views to it

FakoMaybach1:

Brother you are an intellectual. Your opposing argument is laced with finesse.
But brother the govt has to earn my trust first before pushing for my money. If the squandered the little oil money why wont the squander this. You and i both know that oil cannot compete with efficient taxation. They have to take the first step and we will meet them halfway, let them reduce their salaries, declare their assets before they ask me to sacrifice more.
This is a serious issue we need more contribution and other views to it

I agree with you 100 percent. They should reduce the waste in government as they introduce these measures