• Thursday, December 05, 2024
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Businesses will pay single-digit taxes after reforms – Oyedele

The debate over the proposed tax reform is not likely to abate soon. Too many interests seem to swell around it. But some jobs are not as easy as they have negative appellation affixed to them. That seems to be the lot of the man on whose shoulders the government at the centre has sent out to go and convince the army of doubting Thomases out there. What a crown of thorns! Again, what does the Nigerian ruling class make of the latest forecast by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)? Just the usual laissez-faire attitude?

Taiwo Oyedele, chairman of the Presidential Tax Reform Committee

Taiwo Oyedele, chairman, Presidential Committee on Fiscal and Tax reforms, has said that all taxes will be cut down to single digits when reforms are concluded.

He said this in an interview on Channels Television themed, ‘Tax Reforms: Why states should not collect VAT,’ noting that his committee has put a framework in place to allow cooperation between tax authorities and the states in terms of data, tax intelligence and capacity building.

“Our hope is when we are done with our reforms, all the taxes will be down to single digit,” Oyedele said.

He said, “We want to be able to let the authorities trained on tax matters collect taxes while others focus on primary mandates and watch the economy grow in a way that benefits everyone,” Oyedele stated.

“The Nigerian tax administration bill is our term to try and put registration of taxpayers, filing of returns, assessment, doing tax audit, using technology for tax administration. We are engaging with legislators and we believe that Nigerian lawmakers have concerns and we want to summarise the bill for them and I think trust is also a problem,” Oyedele said.

He stated that Nigeria’s tax system is one of the most backward in the world, which he descrfibed as ’embarrassing.’

“We are in 2024, and anything that will stop the reforms of Nigeria’s tax system will be really sad and I think we can work out the differences for the process to continue and for the bills to be enacted.”

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