Senate kicks as Nigeria loses N17trn to tax waivers

The Senate Committee on Finance on Monday frowned at the N17 trillion the federal government lost to tax waivers within the last five years. 

It urged the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to suspend the tax waivers and substitute it with a rebating system. 

The committee’s chairman, Senator Sani Musa (APC, Niger) during the 2024 budget presentation of FIRS at the National Assembly, said the tax waivers, which he said have been abused, should be suspended.

“Your projection of N19 trillion as total tax collection for 2024 is good when compared to N11.16 trillion achieved in 2023 but the senate believes that you can do more even to the tune of N30 trillion if required measures are put in place. 

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“The Senate urges you to look at the direction of tax waivers largely being abused with attendant and avoidable losses being incurred every year.

“Available records show that within the last five years, about N17 trillion have been lost by the country to tax waivers.

“It should be suspended and possibly substituted with a rebating system,” he said.

The chairman of FIRS, Zacch Adedeji, who projected N19.4 trillion as the targeted tax collection for 2024, insisted that the fresh N2.7 trillion tax credit for road construction by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) should be stopped.

He told members of the committee that to save Nigerians from multiple taxation, the FIRS, in collaboration with the panel constituted by President Bola Tinubu, would reduce the 62 different taxes to 8.

“We are already consulting and engaging the state government on it. At the end of the day, we won’t have more than eight or nine taxes that the state and federal government would be collecting,” he said.

On controversy trailing the implementation of the tax credit scheme for road construction by NNPCL, the FIRS boss insisted that the N2.5 trillion earlier committed to it must be fully implemented before thinking of any fresh one.