Ogun tasks CITN on fiscal policies

The Ogun State Government has called on the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) to be more actively involved in initiating fiscal and tax policies that would make tax payment simpler for the people.

The Commissioner for Finance, Adewale Oshinowo, who spoke during a courtesy visit by a delegation of CITN, led by its President, Cyril Ikemefuna Ede, challenged the body to ensure the review of the old tax laws to meet up with evolving trends and global best practices in the tax sector.

According to him, the review of such laws would further simplify issues on taxation for everyone to understand and key into it. To the Commissioner, if tax payment was made simpler for the people, they would be more willing to pay, especially when the people get value for their money through various developmental projects initiated by government.

He encouraged the body to be more involved in the formulation and execution of tax policies in the country and leaders of the Institute to get more involved in the day-to-day tax matters to create room for ideas on taxation and help the country improve on revenue generation.

Oshinowo noted that there was no year the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) did not come up with one fiscal or monetary policy as the case may be, arguing that there was need for CITN to also rise to the occasion in this regard.

Oshinowo also tasked the body to look into ways of harmonising the Value Added Tax (VAT) being collected by the Federal government and the proposed sales or consumption tax by the State government to forestall double taxation.

He canvassed for reinvigoration and articulation of stamp duty saying ‘’as of today the Federal government collects the stamp duty from firms while the State collects from individuals’’ which according to him needed a discreet regulating apparatus just as other fiscal policies.

Earlier in his remark, the CITN President hinted that the delegation had come to solicit the support of the State government on the body’s tax academy project.

Ede also informed that part of the purpose of the visit was to intimate the State government on the forth coming conference, as it would be expected to raise matters that concerned the State, find ways of assisting government on revenue mobilization and work hand in hand with it to make the CITN certificate more acceptable and recognised.