Reduce tax burden on informal sector tax advocacy group urges FCT administration

Tax Justice and Governance Platform, TJ&GP, has urged the Federal Capital Territory Administration, FCTA, to reduce tax burden on the informal sector. While making a presentation tagged ‘On-boarding of the Tax Justice and Governance  Platform -FCT’, Chinedu Bassey, explained that the Platform is an association of loose individuals and groups interested in engaging issues related to tax justice and promoting fair, just, equitable and progressive tax regime in Nigeria, and its governance structure is made up of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre, CISLAC, ActionAid Nigeria, International Budget Partnership, IBP, Christian Aid, Oxfam Centre for Democracy and Development, CDD, and Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC. According to Bassey, “The TJ&GP is basically concerned about issues of tax expenditure  regime and its management; No clear framework on informal sector taxation; Inclusivity in the process of policy making and the tax administration; increasing revenue loss to illicit and inappropriate financial flows; multiplicity of taxes; gender equity and implications; use of unauthorized officials; tax administration issues; digital tax an inconsistent data issues; and tax evasions by multinationals and high net worth individuals.
“The goal is to ensure socioeconomic justice through an equitable fair tax system in Nigeria.”  The Senior Programme Officer, International Budget Partnership, Chika Oko, speaking on the sidelines of the on-boarding of TJ&GP, underscored the importance of tax, and described it as the sustainable means of generating resources for development, which makes the poor have access to basic services and development as the resources are used to provide healthcare, water, agricultural, educational, security services including infrastructural development. Oko said: “Tax Justice and Governance Platform, TJ&GP, as the name implies, is focused on tax transparency, tax accountability, tax equity. How do we generate enough resources to be able to deliver the kind of services that people rely on? And that is the role that taxation plays. “So tax still remains the most sustainable means of generating resources for development. And Tax Justice is interested because without those resources, the poor will not usually rely on public services, will not be able to have access to basic services like health, agriculture, education, and so on and so forth. So the platform has a whole lot of role to play. When it comes to the FCT, we have the FCT Internal Revenue Service, we also have the FIRS, so we have federal tax issues as well as the FCT tax issues that need to be engaged, and so there is a whole lot about ensuring that people pay what they are supposed to pay in taxes, and that low-income earners are not overburdened unduly. The Tax Justice Platform will be working on with research, with tax sensitization, education, advocacy, working very closely with governments. We hope that the platform will be able to contribute to their qouta to strengthening taxation at the Federal Capital Territory and in Nigeria generally.”
However, she said the government should see how to ensure tax evasions by big businesses are uncovered in order to reduce a whole lot of taxes and levies on the small businesses in the FCT. “I am also concerned with the informal sector. The informal sector is really quite a complex sector when it comes to taxation, because they really don’t fall within that regulated sector, so it’s a bit difficult to pin them down. And so because of that, a lot of irregularities are going on there. You have big businesses who hide in the sector and are not paying what they should pay in terms of taxes and levies and all that. 
“But then within that sector too, you find very small and micro businesses, people who are just surviving, making a living, they live from hand to mouth, and these people are subjected to multiple taxes, multiple levies from different angles, both state and non-state actors.