A total of N20bn has so far been realised from 262 taxpayers who have declared their assets under the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme by the Federal Government.
The Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Mr Babatunde Fowler gave the figure on Wednesday night while featuring on a live television programme, ‘The Core’, which aired on Channels Television.
The programme also featured the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, among other panellists.
The VAIDS offers a grace period of nine months from July 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018, for tax defaulters to voluntarily pay back to the government what they owe.
In exchange for full and honest declaration, the government promises to waive penalties that should have been levied and the interest that should have been paid on overdue taxes.
Also, those who declare their tax obligations honestly will not be subjected to any investigation or tax audit after the grace period.The programme also featured the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, among other panellists.
The VAIDS offers a grace period of nine months from July 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018, for tax defaulters to voluntarily pay back to the government what they owe.
In exchange for full and honest declaration, the government promises to waive penalties that should have been levied and the interest that should have been paid on overdue taxes.
Also, those who declare their tax obligations honestly will not be subjected to any investigation or tax audit after the grace period.
Fowler stated that as the scheme was approaching the deadline, there were lots of people who would take advantage of the scheme.
He said, “On the federal level, people have declared and paid N20bn; and one thing I will let you know is that based on the experiences of other countries, usually people wait till the last minute.
“In terms of applications received at the federal level, about 262 applications. So far paid is N20bn and people are still in the process of putting together their facts and in the next two or three weeks, the figures will be different.”
He added that the government had identified properties worth over N2tn in Abuja whose owners were not paying taxes.
He added that if those who owned the properties fail to regularise their status, the properties would be sold by the government after obtaining court orders on them.
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Fowler said, “We have identified properties worth N2tn that belong to corporate organisations that have never filed any tax and now we are in the process of getting a court order to start selling those properties if the owners do not come and pay the taxes.
“And this is a programme we going to roll over across the whole country and we’ve concluded in Kaduna and in Lagos, and we are going to other states.”
Adeosun added that the government was committed to implementing the VAIDS as the country had one of the lowest tax to Gross Domestic Product ratio in the world.
She lamented that out of the 14 million taxpayers in the country, about 13.5 million were paying through the Pay-As-You-Earn scheme.
This, she said, implied that many people in the informal sector had yet to start paying taxes.
According to her, many high net-worth individuals are not paying taxes, adding that the government was in possession of data to prosecute them at the expiration of the tax amnesty programme.
Adeosun stated, “The extent of non-compliance is so huge and we have given people who have compliance issues to declare without prosecution or paying interest
“Our tax to GDP ratio is low and it’s not because we don’t have tax laws, but because people are not complying.”
She said the government had no political undertone in the implementation of the VAIDS, adding that the confidentiality of those who declared would be protected.
The minister stated that the effective implementation of the VAIDS would restore the efficiency of the country’s tax system.
Adeosun explained that an efficient tax system would ensure more revenue for the government, stating that officials of government who collect tax revenues without remitting same would be dealt with.
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Learn from Ghanaian President, PDP tells Buhari
Olusola Fabiyi, Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to use the benefit of his state visit to Ghana to draw lessons from his Ghanaian counterpart, President Nana Akufo-Addo on how to run a peaceful, united and economically vibrant nation.
The party also criticised the President for offering to assist Ghana in her war against corruption, when his own administration allegedly “reeks heavily with corruption as evinced by the Transparency International report which exposed the fact that corruption has worsened in Nigeria under your watch.”
The party, in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, in Abuja on Wednesday, said the President and his handlers should have been embarrassed that while the President of Ghana paraded credentials of a robust economy and a peaceful nation, Nigeria, under the Buhari Presidency was plagued with economic recession and an upsurge of violence and daily bloodletting.
He said, “When President Buhari was reeling out President Akufo-Addo achievements in his one year in office; his ingenious approach to job creation; the farming-for-job initiative, the senior high school free education, one district-one factory project and one village-one dam initiative among others.
“We hope our dear President reflected on the fact that back home, his inept government had instead, wrecked our once robust economy, the reason he had nothing to present to the world at the ceremony.
“We hope President Buhari recollected that unlike his Ghanaian counterpart, his administration had nothing to show in its first year in office.
“Our President recalls that under his own watch, over eight million Nigerians have lost their jobs, 16 million remained unemployed, 18 million more are underemployed while another 27.44 million refused to work for various reasons related to frustrations occasioned by the negative policies of his government.”
In the same vein, Ologbondiyan said that he hoped that President Buhari noted that unlike his Ghanian counterpart, who initiated development projects and opened factories, in Nigeria under his watch, many factories had shut down and infrastructures collapsing.
He also alleged that inflation had soared, fuel price moved from N86.50 to N250-N300 per litre in various parts of the country, while the nation’s debt profile had continued to escalate.
He added, “Today, the world knows that what obtains in Nigeria is the direct persecution of opposition members under the guise of a fight against corruption, which has been aided by intimidation of the judiciary and incessant harassment of journalists.
“The PDP therefore urges President Buhari’s handlers to stop embarrassing the nation, especially at the international stage.
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“We know that the Presidency sought to use the Ghana visit to curry international endorsement for their 2019 re-election bid, unfortunately, they reaped a harvest of international embarrassment and ridicule.”
The PDP urged the President to be wary of turning Nigeria into a joke in the international arena, “especially when the world knows what is obtainable in his government.”
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