CITN faults IMF’s call for tax increase, seek base expansion

The Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) has kicked against the call by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the Federal Government to reduce the country’s debt financing by increasing taxes to generate more revenue.

CITN argued that rather than the Federal Government toll such a line of action, the tax net should be widened to accommodate more businesses and individuals.

President and Chairman of CITN, Adesina Adedayo, said this during the training of journalists covering the tax and finance services.

Adedayo maintained that a lot of businesses are already overburdened with multiple taxes and that expanding the net was the best way to go, which the Institute had canvassed.

To improve tax compliance, Adedayo said: “Education is one. The effect of non-compliance will embarrass you when dealing with international organisations. You cannot tell them you are playing smart with your government when it comes to taxes, they will de-market you. We should engender confidence and educate people on improvement in taxes.”

Speaking on the topic, ‘Tax Administration and Practice’, Group Head, Strategic Tax and Compliance, Dangote Industries Limited, Dr. Titilayo Fowokan, urged government to be lenient and transparent in tax administration and management to keep businesses in business.

“Government should not tax us to death. Government needs to conscientiously engage more tax professionals in the entire tax administration value chain.

“Government must give Nigerians reasons to willingly pay taxes by proving that taxes are judiciously utilised. By doing this, people and corporate organisations would, without hesitation, pay their taxes because they can see where the proceeds are deployed,” she said.

Similarly, a professor of accounting and financial development at Lead City University, Emmanuel Oyedokun, who spoke on ‘Taxation and the Economic Growth: Discussing the Nexus’, noted that while it was important for people to pay taxes for economic growth and development, the impact of the tax must not only be written in papers but must be felt by the people in real-time.

“There is a connection between tax collected and people’s welfare (economic growth and development). For every government’s ineffectiveness and inefficiency in the management of taxes, resources are wasted. If taxes are judiciously managed, we shall have no course to complain,” he said.