A FORMER president of Chartered Institute
of Taxation of Nigeria, CITN, and Managing
Partner, Saffron Professional Services, Mrs
Adebimpe Balogun, yesterday, faulted the
move by the Federal Government to
increase Value Added Tax, VAT, to more
than five per cent, saying the present
economic situation in the country does not
support such irrational development.
Balogun who spoke at the eighth Wole
Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series,
themed: “Tax Education, National
Development and the Seminal Role of the
Media”, said that rather than increase taxes
payable by Nigerians as being mulled by the
federal government, government at all levels
should broaden their tax base by bringing
more people in the formal and informal
sectors into the tax net.
Speaking on ‘Falling Crude Prices: How can
effective taxes help limit the hardship’ ,
Balogun, who was the first female president
of CITN charged the state governments to
look inward and develop other products
that could generate additional internally
generated revenue that would help them
cope well with the economic recession
rather than depend solely on the monthly
federal allocations.
Dynamic tax reform
She further called on the law makers and
other highly placed government officials
who earn heavy salaries to lead by example
by paying taxes commensurate to what they
earn. While noting that lawmakers were not
exempted, she called for a more sustainable
and dynamic tax reform system. She said:
“Anybody that is thinking of increasing the
VAT rate, is a suicidal attempt for our
economy. Right now, people are suffering
over the inability to pay for many tax
required fees, ranging from the schools,
rents, etc.
“This is not the time to start asking tax
payers for higher rate. But rather it is the
time to expand the tax base and the tax
net, to capture those who are not in the tax
net at the moment. We have a
misconception about who are the informal
sector stakeholders. The informal sector are
not just the traders, or the ‘Balogun, Ojo
market traders', but rather those who do
portfolio contracts and collect the juicy
contracts from the government and are not
charged adequately. The question I have for
the Federal Inland Revenue Services, FIRS,
is; to what extent are they using our
withholding tax system to capture these
people? This is because the federal
government agencies that give out these
contracts are obliged to withhold taxes.
And so, how much of that do we leverage
to be able to attract taxes from those
informal sectors and not collecting much
taxes from employees, though I am not
saying that employees should not be taxed.”
States’ IGR
Balogun, further noted that there is need
for the federal government to harness its
local resources that will shore up
development across the states away from
dependency on the oil revenues allotted
them from federal allocations. While
regretting that about 75 per cent of states
in the country still depend on oil revenue,
she said: “It is time to develop other
products of our economy. The natural
resources ranges from agriculture, tourism
and entertainment industry. They should be
improved upon as they employ quite a
number of persons. Dubai for instance
survives on tourism. Let us look inward, as
well as other areas where we can actually
improve their productivity and not just
taxes. Also there is need to invest on
exports and creating an attractive
environment, as massive revenues are
generated from export.”
Meanwhile, on states with increased IGR,
she identified Ogun, Anambra and Borno
States, saying that they have done
significantly well in developing other sources
of revenue. For instance, she said that Ogun
State increased its IGR by 49.42 percent
from N17.57 billion in 2014 to N34.65
billion in 2015, while Anambra achieved
29.32 percent increase from N10.45 billion
in 2014 to N14.79 billion in 2015. Borno
State on the other hand, increased its IGR
by 21.8 percent from N2.766 billion in 2014
to N3.53 billion in 2015.
On PIB
Balogun who stressed the need for the
passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB,
maintained that much revenues are lost to
tax waivers to big firms in the oil and gas
sector. She said, “The PIB, I’m not sure
how relevant it is at the National Assembly.
But, it was meant to contain the various
incentives in the oil and gas industry.
However, given the fact that these
companies are supposed to have recovered
all their capital by now, the PIB has not
been passed into law. And as such, it is
creating so much problem for that big
industry. Now that we are not getting much
out of it, why are we leaving all the
incentives out these companies?”
Also speaking, Vice President, NECA’s
Network of Entrepreneurial Women, NNEW,
Mrs. Enobong Akpabio, lamented the
imbalance in information disseminated by
the FIRS.
She said, “We are asking of transparency of
information. If you go to the tax offices,
you are going to have disparities in
information from the least to the top
management. Information across board
should be followed at both offices, walls,
and website to guide us on what to do as it
is quite frustrating.
“For instance, in Lagos State, most of our
members do not go to tax offices to fill
their tax forms. Rather, we just go to the
banks, pay and pick up our receipt after
three years.
“However, such practice is not obtainable at
the Federal and local government level,’ she
added.
She added that tax reforms should be made
clear on the rights of individual. “For
instance what should happen when
government is owes an individual an
overpaid tax, because It is expected that
they would shut your businesses if you are
owing.
“What determines tax payment and what
should be the right way to collect.
She urged the government to increase tax
incentive and provide adequate
infrastructures for SMEs and other tax
payers to encourage complaince. “Other are
increase tax incentives for local investors by
reducing their tax rate in order to meet up
their establishment on mobility and
sustainability. This is because if more
business do not come into the tax net,
government will not have enough tax to
collect; if companies are shut down due to
burdensome tax invasions, government will
not be able to meet its tax revenue base
and more importantly, the tax offices
should be conducive and rid of touts and
other undesirable elements currently
bedevilling their operations”, she added.


www.vanguardngr.com/2016/07/economic-depression-fg-cautioned-10-tax-increment/

Raising tax at this time of Nigeria economy recession will only bury the almost dead economy but some people will see otherwise

They shud kuku kill us kill us!

Na wa ooh