FG creates Community Tax Liaison Officers to raise tax awareness among citizens
…To recruit 7,500 graduates as tax advocates
To drive tax education and seamless compliance amongst Nigerians, the Federal Government has concluded new plans to recruit 7,500 graduates as Community Tax Liaison Officers (CTLO) to raise tax awareness among citizens. Details of the recruitment sighted by Business Hilights showed that graduates of accounting, economics, mathematics and other relevant courses would be given priority under the programme.
For a start government plans to pay the recruits N30, 000 monthly as the stand to receive performance-based incentives measured by the number of people they enrolled during the two year period.
This was made public jointly by the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, and Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr. BabaTunde Fowler, at a joint press briefing on Thursday in Abuja.
According to the Minister, the recruits would be expected to go to schools, churches, mosques, markets and other social places to educate people on the tax system and let them know their obligations.
The target of the apex government in driving the new campaign is to shore up the number of tax payers by 35 per cent, which means from the current 14 million to about 17 million in two years.
Adeousn averred that “We will be recruiting them through N-Power and they can apply through the website of the Federal Ministry of Finance or through the N-Power website”.
“It’s a two year fixed contract and they will be deployed to states, attached to state Internal Revenue Service or FIRS.
While explaining that “Their job is to improve the level of education on the Nigeria’s tax system,” the minister disclosed that “Our tax system is progressive, meaning those who earn less should pay less and those who earn more should pay more”.
“A lot of people don’t know that. So it’s a chance to get people on ground to answer all these pertinent questions,” she said.
Adeosun also called on young Nigerian graduates interested in a career in tax administration to apply as the government planned to sponsor the recruits to become tax professionals.
She said “This exercise is extremely important for the fiscal sustainability of states because as you know, most of the revenue for states apart from FAAC is supposed to come from tax.
“So if we improved the number of tax payers, we will be improving the fiscal health of our state governments as well as the Federal Government.
“It’s an important initiative for the nation as we undertake reforms to reduce our over dependence on oil.
Continuing, the former Commissioner of Finance on Ogun State added that “We have to make sure that everyone who is economically active pays tax, no matter how little, they have to contribute to the pool”.
