The Senate has taken a swipe at the country’s N17 trillion loss from tax waivers over the last five years.
The protest of the Senate to the purportedly exploited tax waivers was raised yesterday during the Federal Inland Revenue Service’s (2024) budget presentation before the Senate Committee on Finance, which is chaired by Senator Sani Musa of the APC, Niger East.
Thus, the Committee has recommended the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to halt the heavily exploited tax waivers and replace them with a rebating system.
Zacch Adedeji, the Chairman of FIRS, stated that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should halt the new N2 trillion Tax Credit that it had planned for road building in the nation. Adedeji projected that N19.4 trillion would be the entire amount of taxes collected in 2024.
The Committee Chairman, Senator Sani Musa, reminded the FIRS Chairman at the budget presentation session that the misuse of tax waivers, which has cost the nation around N17 trillion in losses over the previous five years, should be stopped and replaced with a rebating system.
Earlier in his presentation, the FIRS Chairman told the committee that the 62 distinct taxes will be reduced to 8 by FIRS and the President Bola Tinubu-appointed committee in order to save Nigerians from numerous taxation.
“President Bola Tinubu has seen the issue of multiple taxation as a pool of problems that is why he set up the presidential committee on tax reforms and fiscal policy.
“As of today in Nigeria, we have 62 types of taxes being collected. The sad news about that is that less than eight out of the entire 62, accounted for 97 per cent of the collection.
“We are already consulting and engaging the state government on it
“At the end of the day, we won’t have more than eight or nine taxes that the state and federal government would be collecting.
“Regarding tax credit, what I said was that the programme is laudable but that the N2.5trillion being spent on it by NNPCL should be exhausted before bringing fresh request.
“N2.7trillion fresh request being made , should not be entertained because all NNPC revenue should not be spent on roads when the Ministry of Works is there,” he said.
cc: Vanguard Ng
