Oyo traders, others to pay N10 dally tax

The Oyo State Board of Internal Revenue (OYBIR) said it will soon begin the collection of N10 daily tax from traders and various operators in the informal sector in the state.

It said it is a way to institute a new culture of paying tax and building a sustainable tax collection structure in the state.

The amount, which adds up to N3,000 annual tax, is expected to be collected by officials of the agency with the use of Point on Sales (POS) machines.

Chairman of the Board, Bicci Alli, and other top officials of the tax office, in a sensitization and tax collection parley on Thursday, demonstrated to market traders how to efficiently make the tax payment.

The officials toured popular markets like Ago-Ilorin Market in Mokola, Ibadan, where the Iyaloja, Mrs Feyisara Bayo-Azeez, and other market leaders received the revenue collectors and paid her dues to show her compliance.

The Acting Chairman of the traders’ association at Agbaja market, Samuel Orokunle, said the traders had been waiting for the government to begin the new tax collection regime, adding that the traders understood the fact that the government alone cannot handle the development of the state without the cooperation of the residents.

Alli, while speaking on the purpose of the sensitisation and tax drive, said: “We are working towards improving a structure that collects money and builds a culture of tax payment in the state.

“Our people have been paying taxes before now; it’s not new. But somewhere along the line, we lost it. The essence of the exercise is first and foremost to build the culture of tax payment and make it sustainable.

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“It is going to be beyond the present administration and beyond anyone. That is what we mean by cultural change.

“Two, it is also to put in place a structure to collect these funds seamlessly. Oyo State, and Ibadan in particular, has one of the largest informal sectors in Nigeria, in West Africa. We are talking about millions of people who are involved in one trade or the other, and not in the formal sector.

“And if you look at it, if about two or three millions of these people contribute N3,000 on a yearly basis, you can imagine how much money that would be and to what extent that will assist the state to rely less on the allocation from the Federal Government, which you and I know keeps dwindling. We cannot continue to rely on that.”

 

 

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