By Olivia Chisom
Tax professionals, who are panellists at the ongoing 25th annual conference of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) in Abuja, have suggested that the incoming administration should lay their focus on tax harmonising and digitization, security, education, and stakeholder engagement as opposed to tax increment.
They made these suggestions while speaking on the theme, ‘‘stakeholders’ Perspective on Repositioning the African Tax System for Sustainable Revenue Generation: Nigeria as a Case Study.”
The panellists include; Killian Khanoba, partner, Pedabo, Esiri Agbeyi, partner, Private Clients and Family Business Leader, PwC Nigeria, Abdallah Ali-Nakyea, senior lecturer, school of Law, University of Ghana, Zainab Gobir, executive director, Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), and Lolade Ososami, partner, Udo Udoma & Bello Osagie, who moderated the panel.
While Gobir expects diversity in policy-making, Agbeyi emphasised on the need for tax harmonisation, stressing that there are a lot of taxes coupled together, which increased the cost of doing business.
He said the telecom sector has over 40 taxes they pay across different governments, and noted that the right of way charges is also very high.
These situations he said impedes the country’s growth in the digital space and effectively affects financial inclusion.
Killian advised the incoming administration to put an end to the same mistakes that have been repeated for a while and instead look critically at those things affecting the productivity of business and employment generation in Nigeria.
“How do we give a boost to the small and medium scale enterprises so that they can employ more people and give them the opportunity to grow into bigger businesses, who will ultimately contribute to tax generation.” Killian said.
He also highlighted the need to improve on security, stressing that people need to feel secure.
According to Killian, Nigerians need to be educated on voluntary tax compliance, “So the more people are educated, the more likely they are to voluntarily pay taxes without any prompting.”
He also urged the government to employ transparency in dealing with Nigerians, who should have the perception that the government is actually working for them.
“People’s perception of democracy, people’s perception of the effectiveness of governance contributes to compliance with tax and contributes to the tax revenue generation.” Killian said.
He also raised the issue of the 54 different types of taxes in Nigeria, which he said contributes only about 18 percent to the country’s revenue.
“And if you look at the contribution to the tax backstage itself, most of these modern noise taxes I call them that. If you put them all together, they contribute just about 18 percent. So why do we have them yet they create the biggest distortion to the smooth operation of businesses in Nigeria,” Killian said.
Finally, the tax professionals highlighted the need to standardise the tax processes across authorities, and advised the incoming government to find possible ways to consolidate the country’s taxes, in order to simplify the process of tax compliance and digitalize the tax environment.
