By Emma Ujah, Abuja Bureau Chief
The Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) has said that taxation is Nigeria’s only hope of tackling the challenge of raising adequate revenue for development purposes worsened by dwindling revenue from oil. President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) Mr. Adesina Adedayo, stated this at the 25th Annual Tax Conference, in Abuja, yesterday.
His words, “A simple analysis of the socio-economic environment of Nigeria reveals that there is a fundamental gap between our developmental potentials and current realities.
“In the midst of insufficient revenue from crude oil earnings, fluctuating value of the Naira, rising debt and increasing government’s expenditure, taxation has become the only hope of the nation.”
The CITN boss declared that Nigeria was yet to harness its tax revenue potentials, adding, “it is general knowledge that Nigeria’s Tax to GDP ratio is considered a serious cause of concern when compared to others in Africa.”
Mr. Adedayo described as apt, the theme of this year’s conference, “Nigeria of the Future: Achieving Sustainable Development through Taxation,” given the current economic climate.
Crude oil earnings which used to form the bulk of the revenue accruing into the Federation Account on a monthly basis has simply dried up for more than a year.
The explanation by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) was that it has been spending entire crude oil earnings to subsidise the importation of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol).
In a message, the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr. Muhammad Nami, advocated the deployment of technology to boost tax revenues across the nation.
According to him, his team at the federal level has significantly raised tax revenues, annually, through the deployment of appropriate technology which has been described as tax-payer friendly, thereby reducing the level of default among individual and corporate tax payers.
Source: Vanguard