₦airaland Forum

EXPRESSSMAN:
The people supporting this bill doesn't understand the implications.
1. If you make derivation the major basis for distribution of VAT proceed, then companies like MTN will be made to pay VAT in all States where their products are consumed. Just like other companies. This will amount to confusion that will affect businesses.
2. If you exempt people earning one million and below from paying income tax, then apart from Lagos, Rivers and other oil states, how many workers in those other states earn over a million.
3. It is the same thing with companies, how many of them in those other states earn a turnover of 50 million and above.
These are what the Northern states are saying. You want to suffocate them and you don't want them to complain.
4. Taxes, including custom duties that are collected by 62 bodies, you want it to be collected by one body so that it will be easy to introduce consultants to the process. How will all these work and benefits the people and other levels of government.
5. The Economic council and other bodies advised for more time and consultations to sort out these issues, you said no.
And some people are here supporting it thinking that it is a Northern problem.

I’ll try to enlighten you with some of these points you’ve raised.

1. Taiwo Oyedele and his team spent more than a year fine tuning these tax bills. The governors are only being mischievous saying they aren’t aware of its contents. They didnt get their way during the initial consultation phase and are trying to scuttle the process as a result.

2. Aggregating revenue collection into a single body is laudable. Whether or not consultants can be introduced into the process is a suspicion at this stage. Practically, consultants already work with most of these revenue generating agencies at the moment that I’m aware of and take a piece of the pie for doing nothing. Leaving the argument of consultants…the key challenge we’ve faced as a country is many agencies forget their primary goal is service delivery and not revenue. That is why you will see that the likes of NIMASA, Customs, etc all have very poor attitudes towards their customers (we the people). Putting revenue collection with the NRS / FIRS introduces a separation of concern that helps the entire ecosystem. It becomes harder to bribe for a reduced duty or side track the system is if the NRS is doing their job correctly they can audit the funds coming in vs what’s expected for each agency and spot leakages.

3. Regarding economic council feedback to pause the bills. The challenge with Nigeria is everybody likes to be a big man and be carried along with every single thing. What is the job of the National Assembly? They have public debates before passing bills and we’ve seen that used in the past. Why can’t a governor go there to air their views while it is televised on the TV. Any body who says they want to be consulted outside of the NASS is either waiting to be bribed or courted or just against the bill for their own selfish interest.

4. Corporate tax is an FG matter and doesn’t involve states. They way the FG is likely looking at it If you don’t tax SMBs below 50 million turnover, it could mean these businesses hire more people, which in turn translates to more PAYE going to the states and also VAT being generated. In the actual sense, the number of SMBs paying corporate taxes correctly in Nigeria is very little. There are a lot of businesses who do not pay corporation tax and it’s easy to not do so unlike PAYE and VAT so the FG is being smart imo to forgo this segment.

5. The issue of forgoing PAYE for min wage earners is a statistical thing. Again a way to think of it is putting more money into the hands of workers will drive more spending..they will buy food, clothes etc . Taxing this spending will be captured under VAT. Rather than tax at the source, you can tax the workers expense and create multiplier effects for the economy that way.


In summary, any body opposed to the bill should write their objections to the National Assembly and give Nigerians their alternative proposal in view of everyone. That is all.

casualobserver:
Some of this states don’t seem to understand that they don’t have a choice. If for any reason this bill doesn’t pass. Lagos and Rivers will just continue their court case and keep 100% of their VAT.

Exactly. That’s the dilemma many governors are thinking of right now. And pretty sure the FG will influence the Supreme Court to support Lagos and Rivers as they don’t much anything to lose.

Elliotwaveforec:
So it's normal to pass a bill into law after 20 years? Zulum, I'm highly disappointed in you!

That's what the Northern elite is familiar with...drag decisions for years and decades in the name of consultation. Even if you hate Tinubu, you will acknowledge that these bills are good for the country. VAT moving to a consumption basis will benefit states that promote said consumption...it no longer matters where the Head office of the company is.

Governors will have more "governance" to do to make their states attractive for investment and revenue generation. Every state in this country is blessed with one thing or the other (agriculture, minerals, tourism etc), unfortunately, we've hard governors and LG chairmen who are so used to sharing money and spending money that they haven't done much in terms of growing the money they share.

Why so many northerners though? Outweighs the south by a margin.

Nigerians love to treat things with sentiment. If these kids are suspects the focus should be on getting them a swift trial rather than emotionally blackmailing the government into releasing under the guise of them being minors.

Even advanced societies do not take the break down of law and order with levity as it sends a strong signal to deter future occurrence. Anyone can protest but do not damage property or attack innocent people in the name of protesting.

A 12 year old young boy was recently sentenced for the UK riots. Just give these boys a swift trial and let them move on with their lives if innocent or face the consequences if guilty.

https://www.cypnow.co.uk/content/news/boy-12-youngest-person-to-be-sentenced-over-riot-offences/#:~:text=A%2012%2Dyear%2Dold%20boy,swept%20through%20England%20in%20August.&text=The%20boy%20from%20Southport%20was,Court%20yesterday%20(17%20September).

Nigeria sadly has a culture of foot dragging its way through any serious reforms under the guise of consultations.

Same thing happened to the PIB reforms, constitution amendment and several others that got stalled at the National Assembly for several decades. Tinubu and the tax team need to roll up their sleeves and work through whatever issues there are. Push through the less contentious issues and continue reshaping the rest till they have the numbers for a vote.

I recall OBJ or someone talking about the EFCC and the ICPC. The EFCC was originally headed by people drafted from the police and till date has strong links to the police force...we can see EFCC behaves much similarly to the way the Nigerian police force does.

The ICPC on the other hand has been headed by lawyers / legal practitioners and they are a bit more circumspect in dealing with the media.

Great100000:
My brother, I understand and even though I enjoyed this match, with that the way he is playing players out of their position is very annoying.

You can't have Chillwell available and playing Disasi as right back.

But Chillwell is a natural LB na. So the RB position still needs to be occupied by someone. I agree he should be using him, but that will mean benching Cucurella which isn’t likely for now.

Chelsea really struggles to break down low-block teams.

A lot of states need to do better especially the more populous ones like Kano and Delta.

jaxxy:
Lol yes I know all this but I'm only stating his points in the petition are very normal and expected for the average American so whether or not its politically motivated is irrelevant and unnecessary.

If nothing else the petition should be encouraged except for those with ulterior motives and who want to lie to and decieve the American people.

We now have updates on this. Read this article:

https://gizmodo.com/justice-department-says-it-has-received-complaints-about-elon-musks-1-million-payments-to-voters-2000515069

jaxxy:
u left out free speech so is free speech an ideology of the right? or should it be an ideology of only right??

I think this petition is simply to awaken Americans to their core values.

The people complaining about free speech are majorly those on the right. Before Elon purchased X, all of the major social media platforms were led by left leaning people as Silicon Valley / the tech world in America is mostly left leaning. That in itself introduced certain biases in how those platforms are moderated leaving hard core righters pissed.

Recall Trump himself started out his own social network Truth Social when he got banned during the twilight of his presidency.

jaxxy:
it's just a petition on free speech. He didn't say vote anyone.

That’s why I said it’s legal. Think of it this way. The USA runs a bipolar political system based on ideology. You’re either left leaning or right leaning. If you’re left leaning you’re voting for democrats. If you’re right leaning you’re voting for republicans. If you strong believe in the rights to bear arms in the way Elon is pushing for it chances are you’re leaning right wards and will vote for a republican.


If the USA can claim Russian influences its elections by purchasing Facebook ads and running political ads against certain demographics. This has the same effect. Same way an Ad doesn’t tell you to vote for X person, is the same way Elon isn’t telling you who to vote for directly.

If you still have doubts , just ask yourself why he’s only doing this in battle ground / swing states and you’ll have your answer.

Isn’t this a legal version of vote buying? Enticing people to register as republicans means they’re more likely to vote for Trump.

Useful article below from business day:

https://businessday.ng/news/article/insufficient-rice-trails-decade-long-trillion-naira-interventions/


Rice production is actually dropping and billed to drop by 40% in 2024. Rice mills don’t have enough paddy rice to process because farmers are not getting good enough yields. Many farmers seem to have abandoned rice farming for insecurity or just lack of profitability reasons.

I’ve read some comments blaming the farmers. I don’t think they’re to blame at all.
A bag of 100kg paddy rice was being solved for NGN42,000 earlier in the year. Average yield from a bag of paddy rice to refined rice is about 55% to 70%. Which means that bag will yield a 50kg bag of rice if we go with the lower end.

This means the rice millers and traders selling the rice are also charging a premium.

The government is partly responsible for the price increase of rice. This whole concept of sharing rice as a form of palliative has meant the government is buying it in bulk from the rice mills.

This will naturally drive up costs for everyone else as there’s less supply for the rest of the population to buy. Last I checked the government doesn’t directly own any farms and hasn’t been importing the rice it’s been giving out. Also, rice production hasn’t magically doubled overnight so there’s definitely a government factor impacting prices. They need to chill out on the rice sharing for a bit. Share garri instead as cassava is much cheaper to farm and produce than rice.

Other reasons as people have rightly said are insecurity and lack of mechanization in our rice farming. Given the billions pumped into rice farming during buhari’s tenure through the CBN anchor borrowers scheme, one would have thought things will have changed significantly by now.

Finally point is RIFAN is a very powerful association of rice farmers. Given what I’ve mentioned above and the lack of foreign rice coming in to disrupt prices in any significant manner, I don’t see prices coming down anytime soon.

Olu1000:
GRV should rest on this one.I know he wants to play opposition but he should do it with sense.Its not every thing the ruling party does that he will comment about.85k is fine.If he wins the next elections , he can then increase it to 100k.Im an Labour Party chieftain from Edo State btw.

Rightly said. Opposition should learn that opposing everything for the sake of opposing the government hurts them in the long run. What’s the difference between 85k and 100k and how much additional burden does that extra 15k put in the state treasury.

How does GRV know that 100k is the correct min wage? The LASG could as well be paying 100k and then opposition parties raise it to 150k for the sake of having talking points.

They should learn to either keep quiet or congratulate and offer meaningful suggestions.

Reported for false information. This is Libyan propaganda

Kukutenla:
You are still high on dementia
What is the name of the Chief Judge removed and what is the name of the one that replaced him?

Did you read the links he shared? Also recall he said attempted to remove and not removed.

Not sure why anyone is blaming the FG here.

The NASS has always been this way atleast since GEJ's regime. In a bid to carry out constituency projects, they stuff government parastatals with projects and then harass the DGs of these agencies to award same projects to their contractor cronies.

NOI wrote about this in her book ages ago from the Jonathan regime. Bunch of criminals we have in power.

[quote author=zoomzoom post=132056050][/quote]Not sure why anyone is blaming the FG here.

The NASS has always been this way atleast since GEJ's regime. In a bid to carry out constituency projects, they stuff government parastatals with projects and then harass the DGs of these agencies to award same projects to their contractor cronies.

NOI wrote about this in her book ages ago from the Jonathan regime. Bunch of criminals we have in power.

This is getting funny. Why always rice? No beans? Garri?

Petrol smuggle is a clear sign subsidy remains even though the government has denied this severally. Let the market dictate the price of petrol and smuggling becomes a net positive (export) for he country.

Nothing wrong with inviting Ajaero for questioning but the police needs to be a lot more tactful.

Why include potential charges in the letter when you are only inviting the person for questioning? Just say you’re invited for an ongoing investigation and state why the person is a person of interest. The gravity of allegations in the letter is too weighty to just fling around.

SmartPolician:
Abeg, rest!

Which other countries are you talking about? What's their population? You want to use the $40 billion you make from oil/gas annually to maintain and secure a country of 230 million people? Dey play!

Coming to tech, what do tech people even learn in Nigerian universities? They teach you Fortran and QBasic that the world dumped over 30 years and you still spend a lot of money acquiring real skills from IT institutes! Tech degrees are totally useless in Nigeria!

Nigerian government is already subsidizing education, petrol, electricity, healthcare, etc. How many self-employed people and businesses pay taxes in this country? For those who pay taxes, what percentage do they pay? People in some of those countries you say get subsidies from government pay up to 30 - 50% of their hard-earned money in taxes! Will you or anyone agree to pay that in Nigeria?

In short, this entire country runs on fraud, hypocrisy and self-deceit. Everyone wants to keep taking, taking and taking and nobody wants to give back. Surprisingly, those opportunists still wonder why the country isn't working.

I still maintain my position though. God won't come from heaven and fix this country. We have to devote our time, resources and efforts to make it work. If you say a politician steals public funds, how are you any better than the politician if you cannot give a fraction of your earnings to make your country work?!

Truth is bitter to many Nigerians, but you’ve hit the nail on the head.

AntiMarxist:
The only place socialism has worked was in Nazi Germany and in current Scandinavian Nordic countries.

Socialism can only work under strong nationalism.

Nigeria isn't a nation by all definitions but a multicultural entity.

Socialism outside strong nationalism will only promote am elitist rent seeking class.

Nigeria's socialist experiment began under Obasanjo's military dispensation and the reasons for this was Keynesian economics to stimulate growth. It might have worked if there was a clear path to privatisation but subsequent legislation like the 1979 constitution made it near impossible to privatise govt assets. The subsequent military junta were more committed to providing subsidy to promote their legitimacy and popularity amongst the masses. Obasanjo's civilian adminstration began the process of privatisation but this was marred by other powerful rent seekers seeing it as an end to their free meal ticket. State governors also kicked against privatisation because they saw it as a threat to their federal handouts.


Any one thinking govt owned corporations benefit the common man needs their heads examined.

Just imagine if NNPC never existed . Both the upstream and downstream sector would have been thriving . Same goes to every govt owned institution.

Very valid submission. In addition the labor unions have taken up this socialist mindset in their negotiations to such an extent it’s become a forbidden topic for governments to retrench poor performance. No reason why heads shouldn’t roll every time a major deadline is missed.

Headline and body don’t say the same thing to me.

Article seems to state the tenure can be elongated in 6 month tranches from the current 3 years up onto 4 years in cases of war or other special cases. It doesn’t read as a blanket extension for every LG.

A very good initiative regardless. 20k or 0k, which is better. There’s no student loan anywhere in the world that will give the students enough money to live like a king…why? Because the students will have to pay it back in the future.

Universities will get the cash flow they need to survive from the FG through prompt school fee payments and the students get some money to survive as well.

Whoever made this statement should be sacked. A regulator should never openly de-market those they oversee in this manner.

Meanwhile, below is an article from a few months ago stating Belgium had just banned the export of poor quality fuel to west africa including Nigeria, so the man clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about or has a sinister intent.

NNPC being the sole importer of petroleum means it competes against Dangote’s interests which is why this friction exists. The same NNPC is dragging its feet with getting the IOCs to allocate crude to local refineries. Some people in government don’t want the importation to stop.

https://www.brusselstimes.com/1057887/belgium-ends-exports-of-excessively-polluting-fuel-to-other-countries

This comment lacks critical thinking in my opinion. The LGAs are closest to the people and must be part of any solutions to alleviate the suffering in the land. The SC judgement gives them the financial ability to intervene and make a difference in addition to efforts from the FG and states.

Many governors will rather sit down and point fingers at anyone but themselves than do anything.

Kudos to the attorney general of the federation for bringing up this suit.

ojobek:
LWKM ,Umahi is making things difficult for himself,since you are adamant that review of contract will not be allowed under you.You want company to continue doing work with old price knowing well that price of materials is not the same as what is obtainable in 2012.You also treating Berger and CCECC with your termination,we will see who go do the work.

Good move. But what will you do differently in the Ministers shoes?

A contractor can as well collect funds, put it in fixed deposit and come back 5 years later to ask for price review which is what some of them are doing behind the scenes by dragging their feet after payment.