Abati: I thought I could rattle Tinubu during media chat — but he knows what he’s doing

by Anozie Egole

The Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria has said that there is a need for a good tax system to enable the country to attract foreign direct investment.

The Chairman of Ikeja District Society of CITN, Mr Abiodun Oke, disclosed this during his investiture in Lagos, recently.

“We desire to have an environment where they would be able to work and bring funds to the country. Recently, we have been talking about the foreign direct investment; it won’t come if we don’t have a standard tax system,” Oke said.

He advised that if the Nigerian tax law was considered archaic, then there was a need to update it.

“Look at laws because they would always tell you what is in the law. And so if the law is archaic, it is no longer up-to-date. We need to find a way to bring them on board,” he stated.

Oke expressed hope that, with the inclusion of tax professionals in decisive positions, the issue of multiple taxation would be addressed.

“So, multiple taxation has always been there but now our professionals in the tax space have been called upon to sanitise it, and I am sure something good would come out in the near future,” he noted.

He further stated that Nigerians don’t pay taxes because the process was not digitised.

“People don’t pay tax here in Nigeria. There are small businesses that do not pay taxes. A businessman can do billions of naira business in a year and would come and pay personal income tax, maybe because the person runs an enterprise and because he is not a limited company.

“But when such personal transactions are captured digitally, the person can be monitored. So the era of digital technology is what we want to leverage,” Oke affirmed.

He added that his administration would look at the welfare of members to improve relationships

“We have to look at the welfare of our members and see how we can be able to relate to our members almost seamlessly,” he stated.

According to Oke, to be able to do that, the administration needs to have an e-platform where it can reach its members.

He said digitising a lot of processes would enable his administration to keep tabs on members, especially the elderly ones who had given all they had to the district and the institute.

Also, the President of the CITN, and a member of the Tax Reforms Committee, Mr Samuel Agbeluyi, said the committee was planning to reduce taxes payable in Nigeria to 10 from over 60.

“And I tell you they are taking it step by step and from what we are seeing, away from 62 different taxes we pay in Nigeria, we are looking at reducing it to a maximum of 10,” he declared.