Tax Reform Bill: Group wants states to collect VAT

7
The Western Region Organisation (WRO), a global movement dedicated to a return to regional government in Nigeria, has asked the National Assembly to revert the authority to collect Value Added Tax (VAT) exclusively to states.

The organization, in a statement, also asked NASS to amend the tax reform bills for states to collect and spend VAT in their domains. The Executive Director of the organisation, Mr Banji Ayiloge, in the statement, said such amendment would make the tax reform bills fair and equitable in a proper federal system.

“WRO strongly believes that value added taxes ought to be in the purview of the states, and the states need the tax to raise significant revenue to develop their areas.

“We frown at the Federal Government mopping up VAT funds from the states and redistributing them, an act that is not federalism in any fashion but unbridled state socialism, which seeks equality by creating an unequal distribution of resources, which ultimately rewards visionless leaders in some states.

“This is patently unacceptable because it lacks vision and offends the principle of fairness and justice,” the group said. Ayiloge said that such an amendment and its speedy passage would undoubtedly ensure equity and justice in the nation’s tax system and enable states to use VAT to spur development in their respective domains.

According to the group, reverting VAT to states would be “the best political decision since the military coup of January 15, 1966, which dismantled the Regional Government arrangement negotiated by Nigeria’s nationalists.

“The negotiated agreement resulted in Nigeria becoming a genuine federal republic with four autonomous regions until 1966.” Ayiloge recalled that VAT was first introduced by the Ogun State Governor Bisi Onabanjo during the second Republic before the Babangida Junta highjacked it and made it the federal government’s programme.

“Therefore, it is inconceivable that a Bola Tinubu administration that is supposed to be quite perceptive of these issues will succumb to blackmail and harassment to support a scheme that is patently illegal and deficient.

The group said it was time to correct the penchant of some leaders who usually cry foul whenever policies designed to end unfair advantage forced on the rest of the country by past leaders were corrected.