The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has said the federal government loses N6 trillion annually due to obsolete tax incentives.
Oyedele, who disclosed this yesterday at a press briefing organised by the Ministry of Finance, said the present administration was reviewing some of the tax incentives to block leakages.
He said, “As part of our mandate, we are currently reviewing some tax incentives in the country. For instance, there were some incentives in the law for the reconstruction of the country after the civil war, which is obsolete already. So, when you don’t look at such and correct them, it becomes a challenge.
“Our reports show that we lose about N6trn to tax incentives, which was why we decided that we want to review it by also introducing disincentives that will stimulate the economy that will see us grow our tax to GDP ratio to 18 per cent in three years.”
Oyedele further said the committee would also rationalise incentives to close the tax gap in the country to encourage people to pay basic taxes that could see a higher yield of N20trn.
Earlier, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, said the federal government had concluded plans to open up channels that would attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI).
He said the country could not continue using 90 per cent of its revenue to service debts.
He further said, “We need to also open up channels of attracting FDIs and encourage Nigerians to invest, because Nigerians have huge forex lying in their domiciliary accounts, which can be channeled to reflate the economy. This is in addition to finding ways of bringing in diaspora remittances and encouraging Nigerians abroad to invest in the country.”
Also speaking, the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Ltd (NNPCL), Mele Kyari, revealed that oil consumption had dropped by 30 per cent from 66.7 million to 46 million per day since the removal of fuel subsidy.
He added that, “Oil production which has been very low and hovering around one million barrels per day (mbpd) has now significantly increased to 1.6mbpd.”
