BY FESTUS OKOROMADU, ABUJA
There are indications that the Presidential Committee on Tax Reforms and Fiscal Policy in Nigeria, inaugurated by President Bola Tinubu, is devising strategies to overhaul the tax collection process in the country.
The chairman of the committee, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed this at the State House on Tuesday, Abuja, after he submitted his team’s maiden report on its quick-win achievements in the first 30 days to President Bola Tinubu.
Oyedele, who was accompanied by the chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zacch Adedeji, said the committee’s aim is to consolidate taxes at all levels of government and reduce the total number of taxes to a single digit.
He said that Nigeria is currently in a critical phase of reviewing its laws and regulations on taxation.
According to him, the committee had engaged with the Senate and the House of Representatives with the objective of addressing all necessary reforms.
He also disclosed that the committee has commenced public consultation and stakeholder engagement on tackling some of the controversies around the VAT law, asserting that solutions will only come from Nigerians and not from the law court.
“So, all we did today was to formally present the report to Mr. President, but I will say that once we get the nod from Mr President, it will be like just switching on the tap and then the implementation starts immediately.
“There’s so much work for us to do. This is just Milestone No. 1. It is what we call quick wins. The second phase, which is where we are now, is the critical reforms. Those critical reforms involve even rewriting our major tax laws, addressing something that everybody in this room will be very familiar with, the multiplicity of taxes.
“We have over 60 taxes and levies, officially collectable by federal, state, and local governments. Unofficially, those taxes are over 200, making life difficult for our people. So the objective we have, and that’s what we’re working towards, is to bring all of that to a single digit,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Nigerian Equities Market bounced back on Tuesday closing positively by 340.85 basis points with a favourable market breadth.
Consequently, the NGX All-Share Index advanced by 0.51 percent closing at 67,217.77 basis points, compared to the previous day’s gain of 0.06 percent, which closed at 66,876.92 basis points.
Similarly, the NGX year-to-date return rose to 31.15 percent as the market capitalization gained N187.26 billion to close at N36.93 trillion.
Renewed investors’ interests in the stocks of Telco heavyweight, MTNN alongside Tier-1 banks ZENITH BANK and GTCO with 0.20 percent, 0.90 percent and 2.27 percent price gain respectively were responsible for the positive results.
The total volume of shares traded advanced by 1.68 percent to close at 319.90 million valued at N6.33 billion, exchanged in 6,272 deals. ACCESSCORP was the most traded stock by volume with 50.78 million, while GTCO was the most traded stock by value with N1.50 billion worth of units traded.
At the close of trading, the market recorded 21 gainers, 13 losers, and 83 unchanged. FLOURMILL topped the gainers’ list, while VEDGROUP topped the list of losers.
