The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has clarified that the new tax system expected to commence next year is projected to address the issues of multiplicity of taxes and prodding taxing agencies in the country. Specifically, Oyedele explained that Nigeria had one of the highest tax burdens on businesses in the world, coupled with some craziest tax structure and system in the world.
The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms who made this known during an interview with New Telegraph in Lagos said that multiplicity of taxes had caused disruptions to many Nigerian businesses in the past. He said: “This picture you are looking at is exactly the type of tax system we have in Nigeria.
Some of it we inherited from our colonial masters before our independence and now we are passing it, so how is it supposed to work even the British that gave us has forgotten they have those versions of tax laws? And this has now became impediments to our growth and development in Nigeria.
“To start a small business is difficult, Medium size life is hard, Multinational cannot compete. So this is the reason why this new reform policy is formed to review all the obsolete tax laws and enacted new ones because we needed to address the issues of multiplicity of taxes and rampant taxing agencies. Not that we have many taxes that we collect but, we also have all manners of those who collect these taxes, including non state actors. “We have one of the highest tax burdens on businesses in the world, we ranked amongst the top 10.
You will think, we are America or China but, this is us trying to find all the investments in the world to employ our young people to grace prosperity. It is also us with some craziest tax structure and system in the world. We taxed poverty.
When TIN was launched in 2017, the Vice President was acting as the Acting President as at that time, and I was involved in the weight design and I was in the State House, And the then Vee Pee read that 96 per cent of the income tax that people pay in Nigeria is collected from the low income earners.
“So you see, how does it make sense or how is it right that you taxed your most vulnerable citizens to finance government in a country where you already have wide income inequality you have not even consider tax there wide inequality and you now collect more taxes from the low income earners to further complicate their suffering. And this is one of the reasons why there is this social tension in Nigeria today.”
