The Dean, Faculty of Direct Taxation, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), Mr Taiwo Oyedele, has stressed the need to simplify the process of tax payment in the country.
Oyedele said in Lagos that the gesture would encourage tax compliance and also reduce time wastage.
He said that the process of remitting taxes and complying with tax processing in the country were too cumbersome.
“When tax payment is simplified, taxpayers will be able to file their tax returns on time and by implication encouraging voluntary tax compliance,’’ he said.
Oyedele said Nigeria ranked “180 out 183 economies in the 2012 World Bank reports in term of the time it takes to comply with taxes issues’’.
“Taxpayers spend a lot of time calculating taxes, file tax returns and also collect their Tax Clearance Certificates, “he said.
Oyedele noted that time wastage could have been minimised, but because of the bureaucracy in the revenue collecting agencies.
“When tax officers deduct withholding tax from a taxpayer’s income, the tax authority will not issue credit note on time.
“The taxpayer will be forced to embark on follow up which may take about three years,” he said.
Oyedele said that the nation’s tax system would not grow with such attitude, urging the tax administrators to streamline their tax procedures to ease burden on the taxpayers.