The administration of President Bola Tinubu is working to reduce taxes from the current 62 to a maximum of nine, to create a more business-friendly environment in the country.
Chairman of Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed this at the 2023 annual conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), in Abuja, yesterday.
He said the step had become imperative, as the current multiplicity of taxes had made tax administration cumbersome and ineffective.
Oyedele compared Nigeria’s tax revenue of N15.194 trillion in 2022 to the equivalent of N78 trillion revenue of South Africa, with only 10 taxes in the same period.
To achieve the tax reduction goal, he said administrative intervention and constitutional amendment would be required.
He said, “At the federal level. The list is somewhere close to 16 officially at the state level, 25 Local Government 21, but this is just the beginning of the story. The story is incomplete. Until you add the over 108 informal taxes collected all over the place, sometimes by non-state actors that have been empowered, either passively or actively by the government.
“In fact, we have bicycle tax, and wheelbarrow tasks in Nigeria. I think if you are looking for the definition of wickedness, it will be to find a man who is struggling to make ends meet pushing their wheel borrow in the sun and saying, you have not paid your tax.
“What I want and hope to achieve is the reduction of the number taxes to less than 10, yes we want a single digit, and also we want to cut down revenue collection agencies to one for each tier of government. With this, the federal government have one revenue collection agency, same for state and local government. So that they can focus on their primary mandate of making life easier for citizens”.
In her remarks, the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Dr Oluwatoyin Madein, noted that accountants played very critical roles and unique responsibilities in driving the nation’s development.
According to her, “transparency builds trust”, and such accountants must ensure accountability in both the public and private sectors.
The AGF tasked accountants to also address the unique needs of marginalised communities, with a view to ensuring inclusiveness of the various segments of the nation.
