Group opposes FCTA’s move to axe tax consultants

Tax practitioners under the auspices of Safer Tax Network (STN) have urged the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to jettison the plan to stop technical partners from revenue collection.

The FCTA had, through the Department of Reform Coordination and Service Improvement, convened a stakeholders’ meeting involving council chairmen to end multiple systems of taxation in the FCT recently, with plans to axe tax consultants and empower only civil servants to generate revenue.

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In a statement, the FCT Chairman of STN, Dr Nasiru Oseni, said the FCTA would be violating the FCT Internal Revenue Service Act 2015-A253-309/Vol.102 by stopping tax consultants from collecting revenue.

Dr Oseni said, “The act says appoint and employ practising tax practitioners or chartered accountants and professional firms to be in charge of the collection and monitoring agents to collect information through tax audit and to monitor compliance with relevant tax laws under this act with the aim of achieving the Internally Generated Revenue  (IGR) target of the FCT/councils.”

He further said if council chairmen were legitimately empowered by the constitution and other laws to engage the use of experts, without involving them in the revenue generation, there would be constant leakages and poor generation.

He insisted that the use of technical partners, consultants, private firms and individuals remained the best way to boost revenue generation across the six area councils and beyond.