The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Multiple taxation

  • Telcos seek access to forex, end to multiple taxation

    Nigeria’s carriers are seeking easier access to foreign exchange (forex) to expand infrastructure across the country and improve end user experience on the networks. They are also appealing to President Muhammadu Buhari to end the reign of multiple taxations and regulation that have inhibited the growth of the sector.

    The telcos, through their umbrella body, the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), warned that more workers in the telecoms industry may be axed if the issues and other obnoxious policies are not addressed.

    In an email, its President, Olusola Teniola, said: “Our members seek easier access to USD$ and the removal of multiple taxes in order to further grow the sector and its contribution to the economy going forward.

    “Any recovery in Nigeria will be slow and difficult, especially with uncertainty in the value of naira to the USD$. Threats to capital expenditure remain very high and even with the amount budgeted to stimulate infrastructure development, Government still needs to address the imbalances in the need for fiscal increases to support government spending and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) required to continue to develop much needed infrastructure in ICT, which will remain predominately foreign dependent for the next three years at least.”

    Speaking when he led the association’s Executive Council on a working visit to the General Manager, Lagos State Infrastructure Maintenance and Regulatory Authority (LASIMIRA), Babajide Odekunle, in Lagos, Teniola lamented that revenues from voice calls have declined sharply while data that was supposed to have provided alternative revenue stream is being challenged by a myriad of factors, including operating cost.

    He lamented that the free fall in the value of the naira against the dollar has ensured that roll-out of new base transmission station (BTS) and expansion of existing capacity remained impossible.

  • ‘Multiple taxation, others cripple telcos’

    ‘Multiple taxation, others cripple telcos’

    The Executive Vice Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC),  Prof. Umar  Danbatta, yesterday lamented that multiple taxation and regulation, constraints in securing approval for right of way (RoW) and others were taking tolls on the quality of telecoms services across the country.

    Speaking when he visited Governor Ibikunle Amosun at Oke Mosan Governor’s  Office in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, he said cases of multiple taxation constitute threat to the operations and survival of the industry, appealing to Amosun to prevail on his colleague in Nigerian Governors’ Forum to lessen the crippling burden of multiple taxation on them.

    He said: “We have our worries about the continuous growth of the sector; there have been recurring cases of multiple taxation which threatens the operators and by extension telecoms services.

    “Various tiers of government,  including local councils and state government agencies have created enormous challenges to the sector and some of the agencies often threaten to shut down base transceivers stations (BTS) over alleged refusal of the telecoms’ companies to comply with a tax regime which the operators see as grossly excessive.”

  • Fate Foundation chief deplores multiple taxation

    Executive Director, Fate Foundation, Mrs Adenike Adeyemi has appealed to the governement at all levels to reduce taxes for entrepreneurs, saying the  tax regime is overbearing.

    She spoke during Speaking at the Fate Foundation’s Alumni knowledge building session in Lagos.

    She said while small enterprises were willing to pay tax, there were also taxes coming from state governments and councils.

    She maintained that because of the economic situation, small businesses were finding it difficult to comply, urging the government to provide incentives to encourage entrepreneurs rather than introduce new ones.

    She pointed that  higher taxes could be counter productive as they eat into business profits, thereby inhibiting their ability to expand and create more jobs.

    She lamented that the imposition of higher taxes, coming alongside dramatic increases in other  tariffs is crippling the profitability of businesses and thus their ability to grow and thus help Ghana’s economic growth.

    She bemoaned the rise in operational costs and utility tariff hikes all of which had become burdensome on businesses.

    Entrepreneurs, who spoke at the forum, cautioned the government over excessive taxation of local companies. They maintained that if they are taxed too much they cease to be competitive and could collapse which then implies that there won’t be enough to pay taxes to government. They  pointed out that the tax increases  would  result in lower revenues as they dampened economic activity, resulting in less taxable income.

    She advised the tax officers made efforts to get their dues fairly and to clamp down on businesses  without proper enlightenment and  discussion on right taxes.

  • Aba tricycle operators protest ‘multiple taxation’

    Commercial tricycle operators in Aba, Abia State, have protested what they described as ‘excessive and multiple taxation from their parent body, the Abia State Amalgamated Tricycle Operators’ Association (ASATOA).

    They also protested the “exploitation, intimidation and continued harassment” by law enforcement agencies and government’s revenue collectors who use them as money-making ventures.

    According to them, they had endured much injustice from the revenue collectors, who abuse them and damage their tricycles. They accused their parent body, ASATOA of being nonchalant to their plights, even as they said efforts to attract government’s attention have failed.

    Led by Mr. Ugwunna, the group claimed that they pay over N16,000 to the government monthly and the police.

    “Because we do not have such freedom, we have persons who call themselves our leaders whose business is to make money from us.

    “We get new taxes from government and tickets daily. You need to see how our members are abused, harassed and intimidated. Are we even talking about exploitation from the police? Go to Ogbor Hill Bridge, you will see police there and each Keke pays N50. Is that the lives and property they are protecting? If criminals and kidnappers are arrested with the same vigour with which they harass us, I think crime will reduce.

    “Recently, the government accused us of aiding kidnappers move victims out of town and so told us to remove our curtains. We complained that our customers were not comfortable with it but none of the people who collect money from us could find ways to keep us in the business during rainy season.

    “We are called a union and yet meetings are not held, members do not hear of any plan for or against them before it is implemented and decisions are made arbitrarily. ASATOA is undemocratic.

    “We wake up each day to hear of increase in taxes through ticket money. They collect money for peat registration (N,3000), welfare fund (N50.00), weekly, yet, if any member dies or is involved in an accident, nothing is done for him,” the group said.

  • Governors partner NCC to check multiple taxes

    Governors partner NCC to check multiple taxes

    The Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) and the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, are currently exploring ways to check multiple regulations and taxation in the telecommunication industry, the Executive Vice Chairman, EVC, of Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta has said.

    He said the development would not only improve service delivery and right of way but lead to the expansion of telecommunications infrastructures across the country.

    Besides the talks with the Governors Forum, Prof. Danbatta said other agencies of government are being carried along to improving relationship with telecommunications Service Providers who are often the victims of multiple taxes and regulations.

    Prof. Danbatta made the remarks in Abuja when he received the management team of ATC Wireless Infrastructure Company of Nigeria (ATC Nigeria) in his office.

    In a statement issued by the NCC’s Director of Public Affairs Tony Ojobo, Prof. Danbatta expressed concern over the issue of multiple regulations and taxes, saying the industry cannot grow as expected under the present circumstance.

    “So we have decided to engage all stakeholders especially other government agencies in order to cushion the pains operators go through,” he said.

    Danbatta said; “the NCC is particularly worried about the indiscriminate way base transceiver stations are sealed by agencies and some State governments and we have appealed to these agencies and the State Governors to show some understanding.

    “We are particularly in talks with them to understand the implications of these actions as they affect quality of service and other sundry matters, including power supply.”

    According to the statement, Prof. Danbatta implored ATC Nigeria to ensure regular power supply to the managed base stations in order to make a difference, considering the enabling environment created by government for businesses to thrive.

    The Chief Executive of ATC Nigeria, Mr. Gordon Porter said his team came to familiarize itself with the NCC management, said the statement.  “We are here to tell you what we do, how we do it and why we do what we do,” Mr Porter added.

    The statement further said ATC recently acquired 4716 cell sites from Bharti Airtel Nigeria and for the past 146 days it has deployed 1,000 generators and replaced 600 air-condition units.

    It added that so far over $11Million has been invested by the company on these towers with a view to improving quality of service very significantly.

     

  • NCC decries multiple taxation in telecom sector

    NCC decries multiple taxation in telecom sector

    The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, has said efforts have reached advanced stage to address the issue of multiple taxation in the industry.

    The Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta stated this shortly after a meeting with States Desk Officers on Universal Service Provision Fund  (USPF) at the Commission’s head office in Abuja Tuesday.

    Professor Danbatta said the commission was being inundated with complaints from service providers on multiple taxation from the federal, states and local government councils in the country.

    This, he noted, would not allow speedy growth and development of telecommunication infrastructures as the number of subscribers increase on daily basis across the nation.

    He maintained that under his leadership, the NCC would ensure considerable improvement in quality of service and other parameters, stressing that broadband penetration though low in sub-Saharan Africa would be improved upon with time.

    Professor Danbatta said: “Now the fact that we are leading (broadband penetration) and if you translate the penetration rate that is normally provided in percentage into numbers then you will find over 130 million Nigerians with access to GSM services and of course these very high number of subscribers come with its challenges in terms of the degradation of quality of services.

    “The more subscribers you have the more the telecomm services are stretched. They are not stretched above the limit but there is need for urgent measures to be put in place to avoid a situation where we are in like today. Something needs to be done urgently and these measures are measures that the commission can consciously put in place to address the quality of service through making sure that telecoms infrastructure is not vandalized.

    “And through the protection of our telecommunication infrastructure, through facilitating the Right of Way which is something that has to do with gaining access to sites and locations where we need to lay infrastructure like fibre cables. We also need to address the issue of multiple taxation at the federal and state levels and as well as at the local government level as various form of taxation are being introduced and the telecomm services providers are complaining about these multiple taxations.

    “So these are things that the commission can do on its own and the second category is to prevail on operators to expand by way of having more infrastructure to be able to address the high number of subscribers to sort of accessing their services and the way to do that is also by intervening by introducing subsidy to encourage the service providers to go into provision of telecomm infrastructure which is capital intensive.”

    He said the Universal Service Provision Fund was established “based on the recommendation of the ITU that all countries and regulators like NCC should set aside certain percentage of what we called annual operation levy which is 40 percentage.

    “This is normally set aside to drive the activities of USPF so there are resources available but it is the question of making sure that these resources are used to provide telecommunication services in the areas where telecommunication operators wouldn’t want to venture into.

    “So consciously speaking the USPF is intended to address this and as the unwillingness of operators to go into areas and we have define this as rural areas that are underserved or un-served of telecommunications services so when you undertake projects like the School Knowledge Centres, it can be in such places where people in the rural areas can go and learn one or two things about ICT to enable them do activities that are multifaceted,” Professor Danbatta stated.

  • Okonjo-Iweala warns against multiple taxation

    Okonjo-Iweala warns against multiple taxation

    The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has cautioned against the retention and practice of a regime of multiple taxation, saying it will be injurious to businesses and would, ultimately, hamper increased revenue to the government.

    Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, who addressed a group of Nigerian journalists at the end of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank Group meetings in Washington DC, while defending her position that increased taxes, especially the Value Added Tax (VAT), was required to  boost government’s revenue,  called for caution, lest  the cry against incidences of multiple taxation is entrenched.

    “In our economy, there are entities charging all manner of fees, from the Federal Government, ministries , agencies, to the states and local governments. They are too many and sometimes they don’t raise the kind of revenue that is needed,” she said, adding that there is ongoing process to harmonise these multiplicity of taxes, as well as rationalise them so that businesses and individuals do not feel that they are being constantly taxed.

    She said: “The key thing is that the taxes that raise revenue for the economy (the VAT for an example) has not been used as a policy. We’ll probably raise far more revenue than all these small taxes that are being raised.”  She stressed the need to harmonise,  streamline and do away with most of the existing fees and charges.

    “We need to focus on the main taxes that will really generate the kind of revenue necessary, and that is the VAT,” she stated.

    She said her position on the review and overhaul of the nation’s tax system is supported by the governors, who in their last National Economic Council (NEC) meeting, recommended the option. “This is what they said they wanted, so it’s not even an issue with the Federal Government alone,” she said.

    She said falling commodities’ prices and oil can be beneficial to global growth, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group are estimating another one percentage growth for the world from this development.

    She however said for the countries that export these commodities, “this poses a challenge. So a lot of time was spent discussing what policies and measures countries should take in order to be able to manage the situation.”

    Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said there were good pieces of advice relating to the drop in oil prices, as they affect Nigeria. “We are quite familiar with those suggestions, and have, on our own, been implementing them. It is something we are comfortable with- the recommended fiscal reforms, and we have been implementing that,” she said.

    Fiscal reforms, she explains,  entails a look at  expenditure side and see how  leakages can be plugged and curtail expenditure that are not strictly necessary. According to her,  revenue side has to be looked at and explore how to raise more revenue.  “If you see the 2015 budget, these two things have already been addressed – efficiency of resources and use of the resources.

    “With the support of the World Bank Group, we are introducing an instrument to help streamline the projects. “We have to determine which ones are most effective so we can ascertain which to retain, and which ones to drop. We are already aligned with what was recommended,” she added.

    She said the budget contained some of the measures designed to drive the economy, adding that the efficiency of these measures will be benchmarked against their implementation when the Appropriation Bill  is eventually passed into law.

  • Okonjo-Iweala warns on multiple taxation retention

    The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has warned the incoming administration on the danger of retaining the multiple taxation regime, saying such move would be injurious to businesses and ultimately reduce revenue to government.

    Okonjo-Iweala, who is also the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, addressed a group of Nigerian journalists at the end of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/ World Bank Group meetings in Washington DC, United States, on Monday.

    She said, “In our economy, there are entities charging all manner of fees, from the Federal Government, Ministries, Agencies, to the states and local governments. They are too many and sometimes they don’t raise the kind of revenue that is needed.

    “However, there is an ongoing process to harmonise these multiplicity of taxes, as well as rationalize them so that businesses and individuals do not feel that they are being constantly taxed.

    “The key thing is that the taxes that raise revenue for the economy (the VAT for example) has not been used as a policy. We will probably raise far more revenue than all these small taxes that are being raised. To harmonise, streamline and do away with most of the existing fees and charges, we need to focus on those taxes that will yield the revenue necessary for growth of the economy.”

    The minister said her position on the review of the nation’s tax system is supported by state governors, who at their last National Economic Council meeting recommended the option.

     

  • Multiple taxation, touting, killing investors, says Okomu Oil MD

    Multiple taxation, touting, killing investors, says Okomu Oil MD

    The Managing Director of Okomu Oil PLC, Dr Graham Hefer, has urged states in the Niger Delta to help support the non-oil sector of the economy to wean the nation off its overdependence on the oil sector. He said this was necessary in view of the crashing price of crude oil in the international market.

    Already, he said the Federal Government had given the agriculture sector a massive boost in recent times, stressing that the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Akinwumi Adesina had been proactive in getting Nigeria’s agric sector back on track. He however noted that there are still so much more to be done to make government agricultural and other policies more than just pieces of paper.`

    He said: “With the crude oil price crashing down drastically, the federal government said it will be assisting non-oil sector like agriculture and It has started, we have been talking with the Minister of Agriculture and he is being the most proactive in terms of trying to get agriculture of becoming at her forefront.  We hope the state will follow in future.”

    The MD lamented the hostility of some of the company’s host communities, noting that a situation where the company is incessantly attacked by youths and community leaders does not occur well for business and foreign investment.

    “It is a difficult circumstance that you are seeing now. I have international shareholders on the company’s board and when they see people behaving like this killing people, insecurity, we are not going to get investors. Investors look for a stable environment and politically convenient for them to manage business.

    “In the last four years, they use us as example for good investment but not one investor has arrived. That is failure for us as well. I don’t want to be alone here because the tax authorities gun for me. If there are more people to take up the tax burden it makes life more earsier for me because I am not harassed or pushed about.

    “We are the only source of income for the state government. I would love to have another company across the road with another 20,000 hectares because I know that the tax burden and the level of unemployment is reduced. It is frightening to know how much we spend to fight illegal touts on the road every year. I am chasing the touts daily. I have got court orders against local council, produce board because there is no such thing anymore. The 1999 constitution stopped them but the Edo State Government still persists with them. Why do I have to do that? If you want investors you do not allow that kind of a thing to happen on your roads. This is the problem. The state government at the PPP department asked every major company in the state what major innovations for investors friendly environment. We put all of these things down, including multiple taxation, illegal touts, insecurity and other issues. We told them to deal with those things and they don’t have to give incentives to anybody to come because it lends itself to becoming an environment where people would want to come and do business. They don’t fix those problems and they are giving incentives. It doesn’t work. Address these issues and you investors interesting to come here.”

    Besides, Dr Hefer decried the impact of the free fall of the Naira on importation of farm equipment and other input. He said agriculture companies in Nigeria are forced to compete with their better suited counterparts from other parts of the word.

    He also described as “useless piece of paper” export waivers and other benefits granted to farmers, stressing that they are never fully implemented by the relevant authorities.

    “For imports, it is a killer with the naira depreciating, it is a problem. It makes imports more expensive. Around 65 percent of the goods we need on this plantation are imported. We cannot get them locally. If you are exporting products, it is the opposite and has benefits. At the moments, around 60 percent of our total plantation is oil palm while 40 percent is rubber. We have these import problems. We take our price from the world market price. So we are squeezed from both sides.

    “The government gives incentives such as export grants but we cannot get the government to take them up. For all purposes, they are useless pieces of papers because N2bn worth we were supposed to get to drive our company cash flow is out of the system now. The government has stopped it for the past three years.”

     

  • Save us from multiple taxation, hoteliers urge NTDC

    An appeal has gone to the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) to save the tourism and hospitality sector from multiple taxation.

    The Chairman/Chief Executive of a five-star hotel in Ado-Ekiti, De Jewel Apartment, Chief Oyedeji Olajubu, who made the call at the weekend said multiple taxes by agents of local, state and federal governments is killing tourism and hospitality sector.

    He advocated tax relief for investors in appreciation of their roles in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and creation of employment of opportunities

    Olajubu regretted that the tax being imposed on hotels by the State and federal governments is killing the industry and dissuading investors from investing heavily in the sector.

    The hotel owner pointed out that aside from looking into the crippling and burdensome taxes affecting the hotel industry, the Federal Government should also improve power supply across the country, saying his hotel  spent over  N2 million to buy diesel monthly, a situation he said has been affecting his profit margin.

    He said he decided to establish the 5-star hotels in Ado Ekiti as part of his efforts to confront unemployment among graduates and skilled youths to reduce the burdens on the government.

    Stressing on the need for investors in the sector to be creative in the provision of facilities, Olajubu said the provision of ultra-modern conference Hall, Gymnastic and Sauna facilities , swimming pool for children  and adults as well as Internet Service and other facilities , makes  the De Jewel Apartment  a 21st century hotel in Ekiti.

    He said the hotel has discharged its corporate Social Responsibility to the people by providing electricity to the residents within the vicinity of its operation and made donations to a police station in the Odo Ado Division of the Nigeria Police urging investors in the sector to emulate this virtue.

    “The NTDC as a regulatory body must fight for us in this area of taxation.

    “The Federal Government through the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the State Government through its tax collectors always approach us for taxes. We also pay tenement rate, which are affecting our investment and reducing our ability to expand.

    “The Signage and advert agency will come and impose its charges. The NTDC needs to do a proper registration of all hotels and come up with recommendation to the State and Federal governments on a definite tax that can be paid and this should be based on the services being rendered.”