Is President Olusegun Obasanjo's proposed National Dialogue the way forward for Nigeria?
Govt Goes Tough on
From Emmanuel Ugwu in Enugu, 12.13.2004
enugu
In a bid to shore up its internally Generated Revenue (IGR), profile the Enugu state government has decided to take tough measures against tax evaders in the state. Commissioner of Finance, Mr Peter Mbah told newsmen that government could no longer tolerate a situation where majority of its citizens are not paying their taxes, adding that it was inconsistent with the new focus of running a private sector driven economy. "It is unacceptable that we are moving to private sector economy and it does not reflect on our internally generated revenue," he said, adding that government has identified all possible revenue sources and would do everything within the ambit of the law to exploit all such IGR sources. As part of measures adopted to make taxable adults pay up, the finance commissioner said Revenue Court would be set up to try defaulters and punish them with jail sentences as the case may be. "It is in the best interest of all taxable adults in the state to pay their taxes instead of waiting to be arraigned," he said. Mbah expressed confidence that the measures adopted to get taxes into government coffers would be effective. In the budget proposal for the 2005 fiscal year presented by Governor Chimaroke Nnamani to the State House of Assembly last week, IGR accounted for N2.3 billion representing only 14.33percent of the total recurrent revenue of N16, 499, 600, 500. However, there were fears that the IGR target might not be met if people's attitude to tax payment did not change, hence government's decision to employ coercive measures. "The game is up for tax defaulters as government has put in place a structure of assessing those who fail to pay their taxes," Mbah said, warning that they even risk being denied some social services.
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