The federal government said it is planning to stop the collection of tax in foreign currencies.
The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, who disclosed this in an interview with Business Day, said collecting taxes in dollar create additional demand against our currency, hence contributing to ongoing scarcity of Dollar in the countru.
He said: “This whole idea of paying levies taxes in foreign currency will stop before the end of this year. If you are a Nigerian company or individual who does business in naira, why should we pay taxes in dollars? We shouldn’t be creating demand against our currency.”
Oyedele also announced plans to introduce an Emergency Economic Intervention bill that will reach the National Assembly before the middle of November.
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“They promised to give it accelerated hearing so we expect by the end of November we should have this bill up and running,” Oyedele said.
Nigeria has over 60 official taxes and levies collected by federal and state governments and local authorities, mandated by law, according to him.
Including unofficial taxes – taxes that agencies legally or illegally levy without the backing of law – the country has more than 200 taxes, he said, adding that the large number was “making life difficult for our people.”
“The more taxes you have, actually, the less revenue you collect because it just creates the opportunity for leakages and some non-state actors collecting money and keeping it to themselves,” he said.
“We have managed to convince the governors at the first meeting. We want to create a national portal for transparent spending for all public spending on projects for all tiers of government,” he added.