People on this forum are being fooled by fashola.let him name the church owned biz that do not pay tax.the mission owned universities pay their taxes.i know a microfinance bank in delta state owned by a church,they pay their taxes.church owned biznesses pay their taxes.this is just a divide and rule tactic by fashola.the aim is to polarise lagosians into two camps- moslems and christians so that with that division,lagosians will not be able to fight against his wicked,exploitative tax policies.if i am to judge based on opinions of people on this thread,then i would conclude that fasholas divide and rule tactic is working.lagosians need to join hands to put a stop to all these fashola exploitation.most times revolt against oppressive govts starts in the largest cities,but lagosians definately are the best cowards in nigeria.right now lagosians are worse than slaves.

Tax on gifts? Welcome to Lagos, d soon to be super taxation capital of Nigeria.

I double posted.i had to delete.

Nice one Lagos state. Tax them crooks. . Bunch of scammers

With 5% withholding tax for landlords, this will just be transferred again to tenants, hence increasing house rents. Even the 1 year rent has been a struggle and has resulted in landlords increasing rents.  Lets see how we survive 2012 , as it seems only the people have to make sacrifices, the politicians are taking more and giving little back, if at all

Mosques don't generate money as much as churches. Tax only the big churches per square feet!

let them start collectin tax from ashawo sef. 4 every fucck. 2 develope lagos

WHY SHOULD YOU TAX CHURCHES AND MOSQUES?
ALL THOSE WHO ATTEND THESE RELIGIOUS PLACES AND GIVE MONEY HAVE PAID TAXES SO THEY ARE GIVING OUT OF THEIR AFTER TAX SAVINGS.

IF YOU TURN ROUND TO COLLECT TAXES FROM CHURCHES THEN IT BECOMES DOUBLE TAXATION.

ALSO IF YOU TAX GIFTS REMEMBER THAT THE PERSON GIVING OUT THE GIFT MUST HAVE PAID HIS TAX. THIS IS ALSO A CASE OF DOUBLE TAXATION.

LAGOS RAKES BILLIONS AS REVENUE FROM TAXES YET PEOPLE ARE STILL SUFFERING, ROADS ARE BEING CONSTRUCTED WITH FOREIGN LOANS, TINUBU IS BUILDING WORLD CLASS HOTEL, BUYING BELVIEW AIRLINE, OWNS A NEWSPAPER OUTFIT, GOES ABOUT IN BULLET PROOF JEEEP.

AND SOME OF YOU HERE ARE HAILING THEM. IF THEM JAZZ DON CATCH UNA I BEG THE JAZZ NO CATCH ME O. WEN THE TIME COMES FOR THE MASSES TO REACT THEM GO RUN FORGET THEM SHOES.

bammo:

let them start collectin tax from ashawo sef. 4 every fucck. 2 develope lagos

If customers pay value added tax to ashawos,then ashawos should be made to pay tax to government.however, since the sector is highly deregulated which makes price to go up and down base on demand and supply principle,i wonder how the taxation can be effectively carried out.

I started praying for this when i heard about the N1000 charge by a CHURCH per individual for a PASSOVER SERVICE abi New year eve Service, If churches can do that, It is strictly business and it should be taxed,

bammo:

let them start collectin tax from ashawo sef. 4 every fucck. 2 develope lagos

~Bluetooth:

If customers pay value added tax to ashawos,then ashawos should be made to pay tax to government.however, since the sector is highly deregulated which makes price to go up and down base on demand and supply principle,i wonder how the taxation can be effectively carried out. 

you guys ought to be appointed as the special advisers to the Governor on ffuck matters!

I would welcome property tax but going beyond that negates the principles of those who brought Christianity to us. I must say yeah the church has not contribute enough to the development of the country in relation to the money flowing within it. The members are to blame for that anyway but our idea of generating money within the church is totally different from how it is practiced in the western world.

There exist a church tax in Europe for the sole purpose of supporting the church and surprisingly in Germany the government collects the tithe to support the churches. The various government even give subsidies to church because primarily they the ones that run the cemetery and burial services for the nation. There is no where in the world that any government is generating money for itself from the church from my little research.


P.S There is a big difference how churches generate money in the western world and back home here. Personally i think from the situation on ground, churches should be de-registered as charity organisations and their account should be open, transparent and be audited from time to time with proper all year monitoring.

We need TEA-PARTY in Nigeria.

Very soon we will be taxed for the Lagos-air we breath.

Wetin concern govt with gift.

They should tax their CHRISTMASS HAMPERS too.

{a long deep sigh by Mystiqueem}

I don't see anything bad in collecting tax from religion building. In fact is a good idea

This is a bold move by the Lagos state government to go after the crooked and tax evading fake apostles working the system and taking advantage of the tax paying Lagosias. While other law abiding and tax paying Lagosians are doing their part, these crooked religious clowns divert money from their churches to private business ventures which they are mostly the personal beneficiaries of, they pay zero taxes on these investments, the same investments fund their palatial homes, expensive cars, jets and other luxuries all at the expense of Lagosians who are paying for the roads they use to conduct their businesses, the security tax paying Lagosians pay for and many many more social services these con men and their families use everyday and every second, yet, they evade and ignore their social and societal responsibilities while the rest of the tax paying Lagosians hold the bag.


Enough is enough.

I think it is a welcome development, although it remains to be seen how fashola intends to implement this.

A lot of commercial transactions go on at religious centres, selling of religious book, cd, audio cassette etc are taxable activities and a large chunk of the church/mosque revenue ccome from these activities, this is ofcourse apart from other activities by 3rd party vendors that advertise on the premises or sell their goods during conventions etc.

Most of them also let out part of the premises for various activities and as such revenue from such should be taxed.

Honorariums paid to visiting pastors is also taxable

The church might have a school in another name and the school might have paid its corporation tax to the government, but there is still another angle to it, the church or the pastor might be receiving dividends from the profit from the school and as such the pastor/church need to declare this and pay the appropriate tax due, so the fact that a church owns a micro finance bank that pays its tax to the government  doesnt exempt the directors of the bank from tax due on the proceeds, that is where a self assessment tax declaration is needed, but without a centralised database and a functioning tax system, i dont believe the govt can effectively implement this tax rules as the citizens need to be educated and understand what they are paying for and what they should expect in return.

The tax paid to government is for the services it provides the citizenry such as security, good schools, clean water, hospitals, good roads, value of life etc and NOT payment so that government can provide the services, it is always SERVICE BEFORE TAX AND NOT TAX BEFORE SERVICE.

Based on the fact that government has not really lived up to expectation, I wont expect people to be happy about the tax.

Churches will be keeping ledger now, abi ?

As for churches, I agree completely. Though churches are supposed to be not for profit organisations,
they have used up all the extra money that is to be used to feed the poor and the widows within the congregation to set up profit making businesses;
Publishing houses, table water factories,
Microfinace banks, super luxury fleets, real estates, exorbitant schools.
All these things deserves to be taxed!
I still wish though that today's church leadership will one day realize that while they live in opulence, some of the brethren who are supposed to have their basic necessities met by the church are actually starving.

Build roads and give us electricity first before u start ripping lagosians. Landlords will start to increase rents now that they will be forced to pay tax. Stop comparing us to developed world, we are far far behind them. In fact, we don't need all the taxes, make do with what u av, chikena.

I think it's a reasonable idea. Any profit making body must be taxed, religious or not.

@Ayo-Olu12: what about d taxes on landlords? The ones they have been collecting, what have they done with them other than embezzling them?

To collect tax from churches no be big deal, as most of them (pentecostal) are professional business centres set up by one time jobless and homeless man and his family who will always tell a story how their god spoke to them blab bla bla.

The mistake is if the concentrate on making a dime out of mosque from tax, then fashola and his boys are dreaming. Because at the end of each Salat and Jummah prayers, people give most of the money to the needy, panhandlers (beggars), and less privileged ones at the mosque and environs. So I will rather advice fashola to turn his face to taxing the beggars and not the mosque bacause shin-shin he no go see. Ofcourse if sees nothing wrong in his LIRS boys returning with N50 (fifty nairan) from tax from mosque then no qualms.

He included mosque so that people won't start saying he is partial and all that. Doesn't fashola know how Islam isn't money driven unlike churches.

Yes, they generate money and the benefit from subsidy so they are entitled to pay tax. My annoyance is that churches don't know what social responsibility is they don't even take care of the roads that leads to their church

CHURCHES  and mosques in Lagos State may now have to "give unto Caeser, what is Caeser's and render to God, what is God's," as the 2012 fiscal regime will now include activities in those religious houses under the state's tax net.
Besides, tenants will, from January, deduct five per cent of rents payable as withholding tax and remit same into the government's treasury

I got this bit from the OP's post. The move to charge religious houses is suspect. The bolded is plain silly when I consider the numerous amount of levies landlords have to pay. I run my dad's property so I know this. I pay taxes on the land, building taxes amongst others, and you want to my tenants to remit a percentage of their rent money to you. There is a word for that: extortion.

Supported

Hardeyoye:

Build roads and give us electricity first before u start ripping lagosians. Landlords will start to increase rents now that they will be forced to pay tax. Stop comparing us to developed world, we are far far behind them. In fact, we don't need all the taxes, make do with what u av, chikena.

They are building roads, would you like me to show you?

And where do you think they get money for roads, bridges, schools and hospitals from? Do you think they just do abrakadabra and the money just fall from the sky?


Developed world are where they are today because their people pay tax even on what the average Lagosian or Nigerian is yet to be tax for sef. They didn't get where they are today cost free or by magic.


You want roads, but you don't want to pay your tax. Where is the sense in that?

Pay your tax if you want roads.

Fashola U now want tenants to deduct WHT from rent due to landlords an remit to you sorry Lagos State. This is in addition to the Tenement rate on buildings collected by the same Lagos State Govt. I ask which Landlord in Lagos will agree to this.

U can as well say that house rent for all Lagosians will increase by 5-10% next year.

I pity those who voted Fashola & GEJ in to office in May 2011.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I know that in the Uk (and most likely the US), religious bodies pay tax BUT since the money comes from offerings and tithes payed by members who have ALREADY been taxed, you get something similar to a TAX REBATE where you fill a form for any offering you give in church.

This helps the government to know how much comes into the church and thereby taxing them appropriately.

The members who give these offerings in turn get a tax rebate (don't know when though) but I have seen the form myself (no be dem say dem say).

There is already TOO MUCH MULTIPLE taxation in this country, why impose another form of it? Government should not be about taking and collecting from the people without any giving back in the form of social amenities, developmental programmes, security and general good quality of life.

I don't see anything wrong with taxing non church activities of churches. We Nigerians are so double minded!! We want the gains without the pains. Go to UK and see how much tax they pay, which is where the money to make the developed world what it is has come from for centuries.Why should a church run a printing press to publish lots of books for the GO, who then makes lots of profits and not pay taxes?? Since when did operating a printing press and operating a church become synonymous!?

There is no doubting that the taxes we pay in Nigeria are a rip off. I remember when I was in banking, my salary was like N180k a month then, while my tax was like N7k. That is a rate of less than 5%!! Where in the world do you find that? No doubt we were happy that the bank was able to "manage" the tax, but the truth is that it is just a fraud!! Though I hear Fasola has clamped down on the banks now and the tax they pay now a days is more like it should be.