Landlords and land owners across the 16 local government areas of Ekiti State will be paying mandatory property tax in the state henceforth.
The Ekiti State government said the tax was introduced to shore up its internally generated revenue (IGR), for more infrastructural development.
To achieve the policy under the Land Use Charge Law, the government has begun aggressive enumeration of all buildings and landed property across over 130 towns in the state for hitch-free implementation of the tax policy.
The Chairman of the Ekiti State Internal Revenue Service, Mr Muyiwa Ogunmilade, disclosed this in a statement made available to newsmen in Ado Ekiti, yesterday.
According to Ogunmilade, the Ekiti State Property Tax Law, backed by the State Land Use Charge Law No 3 of 2013, which comprises payment on ground rent, tenement rates and neighbourhood improvement levy, had been neglected for a long while, saying time had come for it to be put to full use in view of the low revenues from the federal allocation to the state.
Ogunmilade said Governor Kayode Fayemi was uninterested in imposing double taxation or obnoxious tax policy on residents, maintaining that the new measure was just an implementation of an existing, but abandoned law.
“For accurate charges to be arrived at, property identification officers or assessors have begun the process of enumeration of all properties in our state and this will provide a proper guide for the government, because you have to pay based on the property owned.
“I appeal to our people to cooperate with the property identification officers in the course of discharging their duties by providing access and accurate information about their property,” he said.
Ogunmilade added that apart from ensuring that the law boosts the state’s revenue profile, it would fast-track the process for the capturing of more citizens in the tax net to discharge their statutory obligations to the government for effective service delivery.
He added that boosting the IGR would provide a solid foundation for proper planning and well structured development across the state.
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