Media professionals from the Southwest states, except Osun, began to arrive at the City Hotels Ikeja Lagos, venue of the two-day training on multiple taxation penultimate Sunday. Officials of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) were on ground to welcome the participants preparatory for the event.
The workshop, which was meant to provide a template for policy makers on ways to minimise multiple taxation was expected to assist key players in tax administration in developing appropriate legal framework for tax justice and sensitise the citizens to issues on tax.
According to the organisers, the training was in line with the anti-corruption policy of the present administration; as it would facilitate development of effective legal framework that would promote fair, progressive and transparent tax system and administration.
In his opening address, the civil society organisation’s Programme Officer, Mr. Chinedu Bassey elaborated on some of the loopholes in tax administration, even as he proffered some suggestions to be explored by the participants in finding solutions to tax administration.
Reeling off the suggestions, he stated that some of the major problems in tax justice are unmonitored tax incentives given to multinational companies, multiple taxation, unethical means of tax collections and the need to amend relevant tax laws in Nigeria.
He, therefore, sought collaboration of the media in the campaign/advocacy to stop multiple taxation and creating enabling laws, public enlightenment on taxation and improved manner of tax collection to develop and enhance tax justice.
“Part of our recommendations is that tax incentives should be monitored, reduction of human interface in tax collection, awareness should be intensified at the grassroots levels and building of confidence to regain trust of the people in governance,” Mr. Bassey said.
Some of the participants who narrated their experiences in their various states, sought to achieve the cardinal objective of integrating the media into the Tax Justice and Governance Platform in their respective states.
They maintained that this would make the media more effective in the engagement with the private and public sectors and be more responsive to the Nigerian people in respect of fair and equitable tax system.
Speaking on the topic “Definition, Basic Concepts, Overview of Taxation and Development”, he said there was the need to amend extant tax laws to address loopholes that could eliminate injustice and inequality in payment of tax.
Mr Bassey, who expressed discontent over high rate of multiple taxation and non-accountability on how revenue generated was spent, advocated abolition of some obnoxious sections of tax law that make operations of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and State Internal Revenue Boards (SIRBs) to be confidential and secretive.
He maintained that inappropriate tax system was reason small and medium scale businesses were not thriving, noting that many traders, artisans and entrepreneurs were discouraged in the process of tax collection.
The Programme Officer urged the media to be in the forefront of ensuring that tax administration was in line with global best practices and in ensuring that tax incomes were judiciously used so as to improve infrastructure and welfare of the people.
In another lecture entitled “Influencing Strategies and the Role of the Media in Promoting Fair Taxation in Nigeria”, the representative of Oxfam, Mr Henry Ushie who described media as indispensable, called on professionals to embrace the use of digital media/social media in their campaign for tax justice.
In his goodwill message, the CISLAC Executive Director, Auwal Ibrahim Musa said the training was organised with the support of Oxfam to enhance capacity of journalists from the Southwest region to enable them to monitor how members of the public were paying taxes, how government was administering the revenue collected through tax and to help in enlightening shop owners, marketers, artisans and other informal tax payers on their tax rights.
Speaking on taxation and media engagement in the five states, Coordinators of the Tax Network in the state, Mr Olakunle Oyegoke (Ondo), Mrs Debra Salami (Oyo), Olalekan Ogunjobi (Ogun) Obanubi Felix (Lagos) and Martins Olamide (Ekiti), insisted that the media had a huge role to play in achieving high rate of public awareness on mode of tax payment and utilisation.
The coordinators blamed low compliance with tax payment on inflexibility, inequality and inconvenience in the administration of tax system; even as he pledged that their platforms would continue to engage stakeholders, especially the media, in ensuring tax justice.
At the end of the training, participants recommended, among other things, government at all levels should ensure the provision of statistical database of the informal tax payers in their domain, development of modern Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) template for the state and local governments, provision of social and economic services to the informal tax payers and development of a sustained engagement between governments and the informal tax payers.
