Follow Us on Google
By Chinwendu Obienyi
The Federal Government through the Presidential Committee on Tax and Fiscal Policy Reform, on Wednesday, announced that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) will be the sole agency to collect taxes which was usually operated by 62 other Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
This is even as the government revealed that its plan is to repeal taxes that currently make businesses difficult to thrive without introducing new ones and collect more taxes.
The Chairman, Presidential Committee on Tax and Fiscal Policy Reform, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed this in a programme monitored by Daily Sun. Oyedele noted that Nigeria’s cost of collection is the highest with the revenue target given to 63 MDAs in the 2023 budget.
He noted that with the current situation, the agencies are being distracted by their functions to facilitate the economy and struggle to meet the revenue target since they were not set up to collect tax. This, he said, was the reason the FG moved the collection of tax to the FIRS.
“We do not want multiple tax agencies anymore, so if you are Customs, you focus on Customs and if you are NCC, focus on regulation because it makes it look as if they are competing with the private sector to collect tax and so we think that there will more transparency and the tax collected will be accounted for.
There are two advantages to that, the cost of collection will improve, MDAs will then focus on doing their work and then the economy will benefit as a result”, Oyedele explained.
He further said that Nigerians should look forward to a more harmonised fewer number of taxes, adding that there is a huge tax gap in the region of N20 trillion.
“We know where we will want to get the revenue from and there is a huge tax gap. What that means is that today if we do not introduce any tax and get everyone that needs to pay their taxes, we will not be where we are now but we think that that tax region is in the region of N20 trillion.
Nigeria clearly needs money and the issue is how do you raise revenue without putting the burden on the poor. This is clear and simple. Our plan is to repeal taxes that currently make businesses difficult to thrive without introducing new ones and collect more”, Oyedele said.
