A former member of the House of Representatives, Mr Oghene Egoh, has urged governors of states in the north to support the tax reform bills before the National Assembly.
Egoh made the plea in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos.
The former federal lawmaker urged the governors to seek more clarification for a better understanding of the provisions of the tax reform bills rather than outright opposition.
“Some governments in the north condemed President Tinubu’s tax bill because they do not understand it.
“Some of the governors said that it will make their states to be poorer.
“The purpose of the tax reform bills is to ease collection of tax, to streamline the various laws in the country and to make it easier to collect more tax across the states.
“The reform will provide enough money to be distributed to all states and also there will be enough money to run capital projects among other benefits,” Egoh said.
He further said that the tax reform would ensure more revenue that would be available to the states and federal governments.
Egoh said that with the act, money generated through VAT and other taxes would be enormous, adding that every state would earn more money.
The former lawmaker said that under the proposed bill less money would be remitted to federal government while higher per centage would go to the states.
He said if the bills were passed and properly implemented, no state would become poorer.
“What worries some governors about the reform is that Lagos State will get more money due to revenue collection, but it does not make any difference because Lagos State is not getting money from petroleum derivation.
“Lagos State budget is the highest in the federation because they have Internal Generated Revenue, which is more than revenue generated by 10 states put together.
“Other states should work harder to improve their Internally Generated Revenue, the same principle of tax that relates to various states is what also relates to Lagos State.
“The more economic activity the state has the more VAT it will collect and this will make state governments to put in efforts to collect the VAT,” Egoh added.
He said that with collection of VAT, over 60 per cent would go to the state while the balance would go into the federated account for division.
“I cannot imagine how a state like Ekiti, which has small population and commercial activity, will be able to collect VAT more than Kano State; also Ebonyi, Cross River that have little oil derivation will get more money than Kano or Kaduna,” Egoh said.
He said that every state had it own economy indexes, adding that there were lots of agricultural produce coming from the north which VAT could be generated from.
Egoh urged state governments to give Mr President a chance to change the narrative to enable more development in the country through collection of VAT.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that President Bola Tinubu transmitted four tax reform bills to the National Assembly on Oct. 3, 2024.
NAN also reports that the bills were the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024, the Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, the Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment Bill, and the Joint Revenue Board Establishment Bill.
The bills would overhaul tax administration and revenue generation in Nigeria, as many of the provisions contained in them were landmark in nature. (NAN)
