My Concerns With Tax Reform Bills – Lawmaker

The member representing Chibok, Damboa, and Gwoza Federal Constituency of Borno State, Hon. Ahmed Jaha, has expressed concerns about the tax reform bills before the legislature, saying there were continuous areas that needed to be addressed.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers spoke with journalists briefly after the bills passed through the Second Reading on Wednesday. Apart from him, concerns were raised at the beginning due to the way the legislation was transmitted to the National Assembly.

According to Jaha, the bills were transmitted by the executive under President Bola Tinubu despite their rejection by the members of the National Economic Council.

“Despite rejection by the elders across the country, despite rejection by the Governors’ Forum, particularly the Northern Governors’ Forum across the country. The second reason is that after studying what I call the bill, members understood that some provisions to that particular bill need to be revisited for fairness and good governance.

“That was why it generated a lot of controversy at the very beginning when the bill was presented. In other words, members of the Parliament, particularly in the House of Representatives, were not on the same page as usual, but we used to be on the same page when and wherever the need arose. But on this bill, we were to some extent divided, or I can say sharply divided at the very beginning of the bill”.

The lawmaker, however, added that while he disagreed with some of the provisions, he had aligned with others in certain areas.

He said, “My position is to maintain the status quo. The highest I can concede as far as my opinion and the opinion of my constituents is to cede 20% based on derivation or generation derivation. In other words, 20% can be given to them wherever these companies have their headquarters.

“That’s what we have in Section 40 of the current Act governing the VAT distribution. But if it’s based on consumption derivation and there is enough and adequate technology and infrastructure to track consumption, analyse consumption and distribute or share them accordingly. It’s an excellent deal because there is fairness.

“Instead of you remitting 30% or 20% simply because these companies that generated this money or VAT have been headquartered in specific locations, we give them that money for you to be fair to Nigerians, it’s for you to pay this 30% to where the consumption took place.

“So this is where I’m satisfied. The second area where I am satisfied is the consensus among all the honourable members that NITDA will not be terminated. NASENI and TETFUND will not be terminated, bearing in mind their importance to national development.

“Particularly, NITDA has a role in providing technology for effective and efficient implementation of tax laws whenever they are passed. So, there is no way you can terminate the life of an instrument that can facilitate the success of a reform.

“Thirdly, on the issue of the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Revenue Service when passed, or the current FIRS, to be the Chairman of the Board is ultimately not fair and is entirely not correct because, as said by writers, power corrupts absolute and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

“You cannot be the Chief Executive Officer, and at the same time, you are the Chairman of the Board. In other words, you cannot be a judge in your case when and wherever the need arises.

“The fourth issue where we have accepted even to allow the bill to be read the second time is for us to extract a commitment as earlier presented by the Leader of the House on the fact that we are not going to increase VAT either now or in the next two or three years.

“There is nothing like increasing the VAT, but we are all on the same page that the reforms’ provisions can help us improve our collection efficiency ratio, which is very important. The last one is identifying where the bill contradicts the provision of the Nigerian Constitution because the Constitution is supreme above all other laws of the Federation.

“Section 141 subsection 1 that speaks about the supremacy of the Act has given the Act a position of a reconstitution which you know there is no law that can be as powerful as the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.

He also raised objections to the proposed inheritance tax, which was against the provisions of Islam, Christianity and other religions, stressing that Islam was explicit and does not allow tampering with a deceased estate.

Jaha said: “So either in Christianity or in Islam or even in traditional religion, people protect with high sense of responsibility and obligation the estate of a deceased person when and wherever the need arises.

“Particularly in Islam, you are not even allowed to take even a packet of pure water out of inheritance and give it to somebody that is not the heir or entitled to that particular inheritance.

“So the issue of collecting tax out of what somebody left behind for us is against Islam, and I believe it’s against a lot of practices in other religions for somebody to touch that of which we are ready to maintain”.