As cash-strapped Nigeria looks for ways to shore up its dwindling revenue, leaders now in search of ideas on how to turn around the national economy merely look back to the past in nostalgia and call for a resort to a better system of taxation on the citizens.
This is not only simplistic, it advertises a complete flight from the rigour which the Nigerian crisis demands. Better taxation may be one of the solutions but even so, many other variables will have to be in place before it can be an effective one.
Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State is among those voicing a return to stringent tax rule as the way out of the country's current crisis. While noting that the Federal Government must deepen its internally generated revenue as it is done in the developed world, the governor said, "central to every debate to every country with mature democracy is the issue of tax payment. We have to find the courage to be firm and just and we have to give commensurate service." In the same vein, the Governor of Kwara State, Abdulfatah Ahmed said he would prioritize tax collection in his state, especially efficiency of collection, administration and management in order to generate funds for infrastructural development.
Simultaneously, the Acting Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr. Babatunde Fowler has called for a tax alternative to the dwindling national revenue during an interactive meeting with members of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) in Abuja. He said it should by now dawn on the people and government at all levels that the days of reliance on oil revenue often statutorily shared among the tiers of government were over and as a consequence, organisations and individual earning income must be willing to pay tax.
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