If MDAs owe N115bn in tax, Adeosun must start campaign in-house—Nigerians
If the recent revelation that Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the federal and state governments owe over N115bn in tax liabilities by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), is anything to go by, it then means that the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, currently disturbing the private sector in tax payment needs to make a reverse and start cleanup from her constituency, the MDAs.
Accordingly, Nigerians who bared their minds on the matter, said the Minister lacked the locus standi to worry companies and ordinary Nigerians to pay their taxes when the government agencies who should be leading by examples have failed to do so.
Business Hilights recalls that Minister recently inaugurated a new team of unemployed Nigerians and charged them with the targets of driving the campaign of improved tax payment life style amongst Nigerians.
Besides, Nigerians charged the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) who had been sealing up several private companies on grounds of poor tax compliances to start doing so to MDAs who had been in the habit of tax violation which has reached over N115bn according to RMAFC.
In a statement by Head of Public Relations, Mr. Ibrahim Mohammed at the RMAFC, the agency said the commission uncovered the amount being in tax liabilities established against federal and states’ MDAs as well as local government councils across the country following a tax liability recovery exercise carried out by it.
The statement said parts: “The commission was able to establish the sum of N115,811,884,454.01 as tax liabilities in the first phase of the exercise covering the period between 2005 and 2015 spread across 30 states of the federation with the exemption of Adamawa, Borno, Delta, Ebonyi, Katsina and Kebbi states, which were given a clean bill of health as they had no tax liabilities.
“At the end of the exercise, which is 90 per cent completed, an additional sum of N40bn is expected to be realised.”
“All the states, LGs and other agencies so far covered have passionately pleaded for waiver of penalty and interest totalling N24,030,004,256.31, comprising N9,748,742,417.28 as penalty and N14,281,261,839.03 as interest, respectively.
“In the course of the exercise, it was discovered that some Federal Government agencies domiciled in the states were not remitting Pay as You Earn assessment to the state governments, thus depleting their Internally Generated Revenue base.”
While calling on the Federal Government to reimburse some of the state governments that executed projects for it in their states so as to enhance their revenue profile, RMAFC urged states like Bauchi, Cross River, Edo, Enugu and Rivers, which had yet to be verified, to subject themselves to the exercise in the spirit of equity and fair play since they continued to enjoy the proceeds of tax remitted by their counterparts.
