THE AREWA Consultative Forum (ACF) says it will soon made known its position on the Tax Reform Bills forwarded to the National Assembly by President Bola Tinubu in October 2024.
Secretary-General of ACF, Mr Muritala Aliyu, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday.
NAN reports that the ACF is a quasi-political and socio-cultural organisation seeking to promote the political interest of the people of the northern part of the country.
NAN also report that the tax reform bills are: Nigeria Tax Bill, Tax Administration Bill, Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment Bill and Joint Revenue Board Establishment Bill.
The bills seek to provide fiscal framework as well as clear and concise legal frameworks for all the taxes in the country and reduce disputes in tax administration.
Aliyu acknowledged the need for tax reforms as a way of expanding the tax net and ensuring effective tax collection in the country.
“We agree that the tax system needs to be reviewed, re-evaluated and reformed. We believe that people should be taxed appropriately because a lot of people don’t pay tax.
“We also believe that there should be more efficiency in collection of taxes. We are forward to a mechanism within the tax system that will be able to allocate resources on the basis of consumption and derivation principle,” he said.
The secretary-general said that the forum was concerned about the operationalisation of some of the clauses in the bills when they were eventually passed into law.
He said that the derivation clause in the bill did not capture the interest of the north, while the one on family capital gain tax dealing with inheritances did not align with the existing Islamic principles practiced by Muslims in the north.
“On the tax controversy, we have a committee headed by former Gov. Mohammed Makarfi of Kaduna State, alongside some experts in finance and taxation, academicians and lawyers to look at the bills and come up with recommendations.
“We have the report and we have submitted it to the northern caucus in the National Assembly, both Senate and the House of Reps and the Northern Governors’ Forum; we have also given copies to the traditional institution.
“By the end of this week, the report should be available to the media. These are some of the things we are doing to address some of the challenges in the country,” he said. (NAN)
