The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) chairman, Zacch Adedeji, has cautioned stakeholders against increasing the tax burden on the poor.
Speaking at the two-day 157th JTB meeting in Ibadan, Oyo state, he charged stakeholders under the aegis of the Joint Tax Board (JTB) and others in the revenue generation drive to adopt a strategy and deep understanding in their effort to widen the tax net.
While urging the meeting to focus on conceiving strategies to formalise the informal sector before any tax attempt, the FIRS boss acknowledged Oyo State’s pioneering role in national development and tax administration.
He noted that the informal sector accounts for 92.6 percent of Nigeria’s employed population, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), emphasising the sector’s critical importance in Nigeria’s economic structure.
Adedeji stated that the JTB, currently transitioning to the Joint Revenue Board (JRB) with expanded scope and responsibilities, would continue to harmonise and modernise tax systems nationwide.
“Our meeting here provides the right platform to brainstorm innovative and equitable ways of bringing the informal sector into the tax net without alienating or overburdening it,” Adedeji noted.
While stressing that the administration of President Bola Tinubu is concerned about the well-being of operators of the informal sector, noting that the ongoing efforts to capture the players into the taxable net are to organise the industry for effective economic planning properly, and not to tax them.
Declaring the two-day meeting themed “Taxation of the Informal Sector: Potentials and Challenges” open, the Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, explained that the informal sector was the backbone of the local economy and should be engaged technologically for meaningful impact.
The governor charged the stakeholders to consider modalities to deepen partnership with the informal sector, such that dragging them into the tax net would be based on understanding rather than enforcement.
