Tax Law: Stakeholders urge further enlightenment, want implementation to wear human face
The stakeholders in manufacturing and financial institutions have urged further enlightenment on the New Tax Law, while calling for its implementation to wear a human face.
The stakeholders made the call at a one-day conference on the New National Tax Law held at the African Heritage Institution (Afri-Heritage), Enugu on Wednesday.
The conference, which was hosted by Afri-Heritage in collaboration with Enugu State Internal Revenue Service (ESIRS), was themed: “Stakeholders Sensitisation on the New Tax Law in Nigeria”.
Speaking, Mrs Ifeoma Ezeasor, representing the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu, said that the awareness on the new law had been relatively low within the states.
Ezeasor noted that it was mostly in Enugu State, where the state government and its ESIRS talk and create fora to enlighten residents about the new tax law.
She noted that further enlightenment had become necessary as the new tax law widens the tax net and tax return filing to include all Nigerians having a business doing notwithstanding how small.
Corroborating, a market leader and entrepreneur in Enugu, Chief Ignatius Udeh, said that most traders are not aware of filing annual tax returns whether they make profit or not.
Udeh noted that the awareness on the law, which is meant to reinvigorate revenue earnings and lead to government having more infrastructure provision, should be stepped down in indigenous languages.
“We call on institutions and the ESIRS to do more to bring this enlightenment to our markets, market association meetings and traders gathering as we know that proceeds of tax can do more in social developmental,” he said.
A financial expert, Chief Chidi Ezema, also called for implementation of the new tax law on gradual phases even as he called for further awareness on the issue.
Ezema, who is Managing Partner Chukwudi Ezema Co. Chartered Accountant and Tax Practitioners, said that the implementation of the new tax law should have human face and “serious consideration of other socioeconomic factors”.
In his view, a renowned international tax expert, Dr Mark Abani, said that the new tax law had taken consideration of the poor and those in the informal sectors with annual profit less than N800,000.
Abani noted that the new law had made it easy for each person’s earning and profit to be monitored and everybody making money notwithstanding layers of businesses or money making ventures one involve in.
“The misinformation in tax law is due to the fact that some rich people do not want to pay their appropriate tax and do not want government agencies or personnel to look into their earnings and profitability,” he said.
The Executive Chairman of ESIRS, Mr Emmanuel Nnamani, said that the new tax law had helped Enugu State abolish multiple taxation and harmonise payment electronically for the ease and benefit of all.
Nnamani said that with the harmonisation of taxes and blocking of financial taxes leakage the state internally generated revenue had grown geometrically for the benefits of all.
Earlier, Director of Afri-Heritage, Prof. Osita Ogbu, represented by Mr Chukwuma Okolo, said that the institution, known for its empirical research on applied economics and politics, had brought experts and concerned stakeholders together to discuss the new tax law.