Group Lauds Akwa Ibom Assembly For Rejecting Harmonised Tax Bill

A socio-political group, Ibom Grassroots Development Initiative (IGDI), has lauded the state House of Assembly for rejecting a bill by the Akwa Ibom Inland Revenue Services (AKIRS), to transfer the powers to collect key taxes including that of local governments under its control.

The convener of IGDI, Comrade Felix Ukpong, praised the lawmakers for rejecting the bill, noting the inherent anomalies in it.

Ukpong said if allowed to sail through, it would undermine the fiscal transparency and erode the councils’ powers as constitutionally granted under the Local Government Autonomy Act.

In a communique at the end of an emergency meeting on the matter, Ukpong and the secretary, Ekpono Lawrence, who signed it, noted that the undue haste and lack of public deliberation or caution on the bill as drafted by the chairman of the State Board of Internal Revenue Services, Mr Okon Okon, was a violation of the constitutionally demarcated tax system.

The bill was titled, “State Harmonised Taxes and Levies (Approved List for Collection) Bill, 2025.”

LEADERSHIP gathered that it was designed in collaboration with other chairmen of the Boards of Internal Revenue Services from other states, to lobby the National Assembly’s Constitutional Review Committee.

Ukpong said, “Their aim was to amend the constitution, transferring key revenue items and functions from local government councils to the state governments.

“This move is intended to facilitate the passage of the bill into law, despite its potential impact on the fiscal autonomy of local government councils,” the group noted

Assembly sources said the bill was rejected “due to the harmful effect it portends to the local government economy.

“This harmonisation, vicious in nature, would have enabled state governments to take over lucrative local government taxes and levies, including tenement rates, customary rights of occupancy fees, building permit levy, ground rent, land use charge, neighborhood improvement charge and infrastructure development levy,” he said.