By Temidayo Akinsuyi
The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele on Monday said Nigeria has over 60 different forms of taxes and levies, many of which make life unbearable for the poor in the society.
Oyedele who made the disclosure while featuring as a guest on Channels Television programme ‘Sunrise Daily’ monitored by QUEST TIMES said his committee is working to reduce the taxes and levies to less than 10.
He said most of these taxes are coming from the local governments while the money they get most times are not remitted to government coffers.
According to him, some local governments, taking advantage of the constitution levy payments such as wheelbarrow tax, and pure water tax on the poor in the society who are struggling to make ends meet. This according to him is unjustifiable.
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“In fact, without apportioning blame, when it comes to the poorest people in the society, the most impact on their lives whether it’s positive or negative tends to come from the local government first and then the states to the federal government”.
“Some of the things that we find out if you just look at the list of taxes and levies, you see all manner of taxes, like wheelbarrow tax. Who does that? Life is hard already. Someone has to do that hard labour just to make ends meet. Maybe you end up with N2,000 a day”.
“I am not blaming the local government for collecting these taxes because someone put it in the constitution and then they created a list and say this is what you could collect”.
“Up together today, we have over 60 of those different taxes and levies. We think we should have less than 10 single digits. We think by having less than 10 that the magic is that people will actually pay less and government will collect more because where you get the efficiency from is the collection that sometimes does not go to the government today”.
“The Market Traders Association told us that you need seven tickets every day just to sell pure water. Seven tickets for what? That is from the local government but it is not in the constitution”.