Business
CITN Identifies Excesses In FG’s Fiscal Plan
The Chartered Institute of
Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) has urged the Federal Government to pruning down excesses in the current fiscal plan as well as identifying waste.
Speaking to newsmen in Lagos on Monday, the president and chairman of council, CITN, Chief Mark Anthony Dike, said the current economic realities called for attention.
Dike said that government’s approach to tax matters betray its claims, stressing that the federal governments strategies to boost revenue may have been assessed low.
He said government has encouraged tax payment as it consistently appoints people without consideration to their tax compliance status.
The CITN boss said the body reiterated its call on government to consider the current non-oil sector growth drivers such as mining and quarrying, trade, Information and Communication, Telecommunications and Information Services and Real Estate sector which constituted 14.50 per cent 17.02 per cent, 10.94 per cent, 8.69 per cent and 8.02 per cent respectively of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as at 2013 for increased revenue.
He said governments focus should now be on using any excess arising from crude oil prices to boost the critical revenue buffer needed to hedge the economy from revenue volatilities as well as cutting down over-bloated recurrent expenditure that has not added much value to government fiscal transparency drive.
He said the revenue projection from the government’s proposed luxury Tax was a narrow flows as it would only contribute 0.38 per cent to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), stressing that appropriate legal instrument has not been submitted to the National Assembly to clarify whether the luxury tax is a levy or tax by the government.
It would be recalled that CITN is the sole body charged by the 1999 constitution as amended as a Professional body to train and regulate tax practices in the country.