The chairman of the presidential committee on fiscal policy and tax reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, says the mandate of his committee is not to introduce new taxes or increase the tax rate, but rather to harmonise tax collection.
Oyedele, a former fiscal policy partner and Africa tax leader at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), also said no government agency has been stopped from collecting revenue, but many of the agencies would rather focus on their primary functions, hence, the committee plans to harmonise revenue collection.
He spoke on Sunday, in a post on X, addressing some frequently asked questions (FAQs) about the committee.
According to him, “No agency has been stopped from collecting revenue as many of them are empowered to do so by law. However, many of the agencies would rather focus on their primary functions hence we intend to harmonise the fragmented revenue collection functions into one agency for each government.
“This is the case in many countries including the leading tax regimes in Africa. This reform will help to improve efficiency and enable the agencies to focus on their primary mandates for the overall benefit of the economy.”
Meanwhile, Oyedele clarified that while the committee does not intend to introduce new taxes, it also does not want to impose higher tax rates.
“Rather, our mandate is to reduce the number of taxes and levies while harmonising revenue collection to reduce the burden on the people and businesses,” he said.
“The objective is to avoid taxing investment, capital, production or poverty. We plan to review and re-enact the major tax laws in a holistic manner thereby limiting the necessity for frequent changes through annual finance acts.”
On how the committee plans to achieve a tax-to-gross domestic product (DGP) ratio of 18 percent in three years, Oyedele said the average tax-to-GDP ratio for Africa excluding Nigeria is about 18 percent.
“This is the basis for the target of 18 percent and the estimated tax gap of N20 trillion,” he said.
“There is a huge opportunity to generate revenue by leveraging technology and tax intelligence to close the tax gap.
“In addition, we will rationalize incentives, reduce the cost of collection, and optimise revenue from government assets and natural resources. This way we can generate more revenue without introducing new taxes.”
Speaking on the multiplicity of revenue collection by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), Oyedele had said the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is best-suited to collect revenue for the MDAs.
He advised that the (MDAs) of the federal government should not collect revenue directly.