NESG backs FG’s tax bills, urges Senate to resume hearing

The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) has thrown its weight behind the ‘controversial’ tax reforms bills which currently await third hearing at the National Assembly.

Tayo Aduloju, chief executive officer, NESG, declared the group’s support in Abuja on Friday during an interactive dialogue with journalists. According to him, the bill seeks to allocate the tax burden to those that are benefiting the most from the economic system such as the top earners and profitable enterprises.

For him, the bill aims to simultaneously achieve set goals. “One is right tax, which was the President’s first instruction to us -tax the harvest, not the seed. The second was this idea that if you already have the working poor, taxing the working poor does not solve any problems. In fact, we are better off not giving social investments to anybody, right, and not taxing the working poor. Because at least what they get, they keep for themselves.

“When you say you are doing social investment, they don’t get it. So, for us, it was a way to say, build a better system. The bills seek to build a better social security system because it identifies those whose income falls already into working poor and exempts them.It identifies businesses that the system already has made vulnerable and exempts them.

“And I think if the bill doesn’t win on anything, you know, Nigerians will support the fact that here, for the first time, is a set of bills that win on the fundamental socioeconomic adjustments required for proper transitions to a taxable level of economic strata, I think that’s important,” he said.

The bills, as developed by the Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee include: the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024, the Tax Administration Bill, the Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment Bill, and the Joint Revenue Board Establishment Bill.

Speaking on the concerns raised on the bill, Aduloju said that for some geopolitical zones, the issue is equity, while some geopolitical zones believe that the bill threatens to take away the old formula that has worked well for them.

The bill, according to him, is imperative to grow the tax net, tax base as well as improve the nation’s tax information system and tax justice.

Noting the efforts of stakeholders in the development of the bills, Aduloju said that the committee has consulted widely with the Joint Tax Board, state commissioners of finance, as well as the Governors’ Forum.

“So, we’ve consulted widely, but there will never be enough consultation for matters as politically sensitive as tax. So, here’s my view, I think the lawmakers should reopen the hearing and collect as comprehensively as possible all memorandums from every part of Nigeria on their views.

“So, the lawmakers should not simply be hoodwinked from doing legislative work. And if the vote is that it won’t pass, fine. Let the federation and the country reach a conclusion that these bills are not good for us. But those of us that have supported the process, we think these bills are better than anything we have had in the past.

“I think the National Assembly should commence its own deep dive into fiscal federalism across board and that’s a process it should go on. Because, as you can see, this unfinished conversation will keep coming up. It’s just that in this instance, tax is the tax component that brought it out and that’s why everybody’s a bit geared about it.

“So we support it 100 percent. The bill is the position we have taken because we have put our weight, the weight of our analytics and support behind it,” he said.