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Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) and the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) have disclosed that over 81 per cent of taxable adults and businesses in Nigeria do not pay their taxes.
This is even as they regretted that the penalties for non-payment of taxes in Nigeria were not only unhurtful and punitive enough, but the processes of penalising reluctant taxpayers were selective.
The NGF and NESG disclosed this during a presentation made by the Research Director of the Fiscal Policy Roundtable of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, Mr. Tayo Oyedele, on Wednesday at the NGF Secretariat in Abuja.
Oyedele, was in the company with the Chairman of the Fiscal Policy Roundtable (FPR), Dr. Sarah Alade, and were on a visit to the Director General of NGF, Mr. Asishana Okauru, to expose the sour narrative of tax payments to the nation’s governors and seek their involvement to correct the negative trend.
Oyedele, who condemned the apathy by Nigerians to tax payment, said that recent data revealed that there were only 20 million registered taxpayers in the country, a figure that was abysmal considering the country’s nearly 200 million people.
While explaining the reasons for the nation’s low tax moral, the NESG noted that about 85 percent of those who dont unpay taxes to the government willingly, pay same to “non-government actors.”
Oyedele, attributed this to the distrust that pervades the country when it comes to paying taxes, dues and levies to a government that does not command the public’ trust.
He disclosed that of the tiers of government on whose shoulders tax collection is reposed, local governments and their officials are among the most untrustworthy, followed by state governments and then the tax officials themselves.
“Many believe that it is unwise to pay taxes to entities that do not translate taxes to services or to officials who diverted same to personal use,” Oyedele said.
According to him, about17 percent of the population who see the payment of taxes as a civic duty which all must perform.
He maintained that there were 354 taxes in Nigeria, which create duplicity of taxes. Oyedele therefore recommended that the country cut down on its taxes from 354 to only 10.
He said according to a research by the NESG, personal income taxpayers would have been happier to pay their taxes if education, health and infrastructural provision were raised to global standards, while corporate taxpayers would love to see electricity, roads and security improved.
The Director General of the NGF on his part viewed the situation as a looming calamity which must be addressed immediately, while thanking the NESG group for bringing this horrendous narrative to the knowledge of the Forum.
