The Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Mr
Tunde Fowler, says the total tax base for individuals in Nigeria is 10 million.
Fowler said this at the
2016 Tax Week of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) with the
theme: “The dilemma of improving tax revenue generation in tough economic
times’’ on Tuesday in Abuja.
He said that taxation
was based on profit and income therefore people must pay tax. Fowler said that in
spite of the present economic situation, there are certain sectors of the
economy that were still doing quite well, generating enough profit.
“All we are saying is they should pay taxes, for
individuals who are not doing well, the tax also is not very high and for those
who are not making any income, there is no tax.
“Looking at membership
in the small scale sector, they are said to have 37.5 million members; the
total tax base for individuals in Nigeria is 10 million, so there’s a short
fall of over 27.5 million.
“When you look at the
corporate sectors as well, half a million are not paying taxes, some are
collecting VAT but are not remitting to government.
“Some have deducted,
including taxes and stopped remitting and some have just stopped being paid
income.
“Now it has gotten to a
stage of enforcement and we make sure that all these taxes are collected,’’
Fowler said.
The Chairman said that
revenue collected in the second quarter was high; adding that revenue collected
by the service in in the first quarter was quite low.
“In terms of actual
collections of the second quarter, it was close to 90 per cent.
“Looking at it
cumulatively, first and second quarter is about 73 per cent so we hope to
achieve a 100 per cent rate this year.
“You got to realise
that revenue is seasonal and I wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression that
we have collected as much as we should have.
“All we are saying is
that those who are making income and making profit pay your taxes,’’ he added.
CITN President and
Chairman of the Council, Dr Teju Somorin, said that government must do what was
required to diversify resource to achieve the desired goal of the country.
Somorin said that the
aim of the tax week was to deliberate on topical issues affecting taxation in
the country and come up with recommendations.
“I believe that the
recommendations that will come out of the deliberation will get to the relevant
stakeholders for implementation.
The Chairman, CITN
Abuja and District Society, Mr Simon Kato, said that if government wanted to
diversify, there must be need to increase productivity.
“One thing that we hope
this tax week will bring out is that we will be making recommendations to
government to ensure that the tax process is made much simple a convenient for
the tax payer.
“It is our desire to
see that we reach that time where tax as a whole will be a one stop payment in
this country, where you don’t have to pay taxes at different locations which is
the situation we have with the multiple taxation complaints.”
“My advice to
government is that we must look inwards; the issue of diversification we are
talking about has to be practical.
“If you want to
diversify, you need to ensure that you open room for increased productivity,’’
Kato said.
Culled from punchng.com
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