FG curbs multiple taxation, okays tax, levies harmonisation

The Federal Government, in a bid to reduce the level of multiple taxation in the country, has approved the harmonisation of taxes and levies across the country.

The Minister of State for Finance, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja while speaking at the opening session of the 17th annual tax conference of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria.

The workshop, with the theme ‘Inclusive economic growth and sustainable development: Fiscal imperatives, prospects and challenges’, is the single largest gathering of tax professionals in the country.

The minister said the approval for taxes and levies to be harmonised in the country was given at the Federal Executive Council meeting, chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan.

He said it had become imperative to strengthen and harmonise the nation’s taxes and levies in order to avoid multiple taxation, noting that it was agreed by council members that Small and Medium Enterprises should not be put out of business with unfair taxes.

Yuguda lamented that following the rebasing of the economy,  which had made the economy more diversified, the Federal Government was working to boost the tax to Gross Domestic Product ratio.

He said. “There are lots of avenues to raise GDP and revenue without multiple and unfair taxation of Small and Medium Enterprises which are the bed rock of every nation’s economic development.

“The rebasing of our GDP has come to show clearly that our economy can be diversified and that is another challenge for us also because we have to look on how do we take advantage of the various sectors of our economy. We have a lot of avenues to raise the tax revenue.”

The President/Chairman of Council, CITN, Mr Mark Dike, who also spoke at the opening session of the conference, said the institute had consistently maintained that multiplicity of taxes was the bane of the country’s tax system.

As a major stakeholder in the tax system, he said the institute had completed the compilation of a charter of tax demands for the attention of the incoming administration.

The CITN president also lamented the use of private tax consultants to collect taxes, noting that their continuous use was a way of usurping the powers of the federal and states revenue agencies to carry out their statutory assignments.

He said, “Instances where these private tax contractors are appointed under the delegated authority principle which is allowed for non-core tax responsibilities under the First Schedule of the Companies Income Tax Act and Section 88 of the Personal Income Tax Act (as amended) is very doubtful in practice as these private tax consultants/contractors are performing the exclusive core functions of the Revenue Authorities.

“What is even becoming more worrisome and dangerous is the invidious attempts in some states to privatise revenue collection against all known cannons and conventions.”