FG runs to save SMEs, tackles multiple taxation

Nigeria is set to have a new policy regime on taxes across the country.

Ripples can authoritatively report that the federal government has approved the harmonisation of taxes and levies across the country to save small and medium enterprises from going bankrupt.

President Goodluck Jonathan gave this hint at the 17th Annual Conference of Tax Administrators organised by the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CITN) in Abuja on Thursday.

The president was represented by the Minister of State for Finance, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda.

Justifying the need for the review of the nation’s tax system, President Jonathan said it had become imperative to strengthen and harmonise the nation’s taxes and levies in order to avoid multiple taxation.

Ripples gathered that the ratification of the new tax regime was part of decisions reached at the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday, where it was agreed that SMEs should not be put out of business with unfair taxes.

The government, he said, has come to realise that “there are lots of avenues to raise GDP and revenue without multiple and unfair taxation of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) which are the bedrock of every nation’s economic development.

Speaking earlier, members of the CITN led by former Accountant General of the Federation Mr. Kayode Nayeju and Professor Abiola Sani, legal adviser to the CITN and University of Lagos lecturer had roundly condemned the involvement of a foreign firm to help Nigeria with her tax administration system.

Last year, the federal government had invited McKinsey and Company to conduct the diagnostics of the tax system. One of McKinsey’s findings was that 65 percent of the registered taxpayers had not filed their returns for the past two years, 75 percent of registered small and medium size businesses were currently not captured in the tax net, and 30 percent of the companies operating under the pioneer status incentive abused their tax exempt status.

 

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