The support for the controversial bills could be inferred from the submission of the Governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Sule who spoke on behalf of 36 State Governors during a Town Hall conversation.
At the three-hour town hall conversation on the tax reform bills, prominent Nigerians like former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, the Chief Executive Officer of Global Investments and Trade Company, Baba Yusuf, the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform, Taiwo Oyedele, asserted that the time for the reform is now.
Governor Abdullahi Sule, who made his contribution at the end of the programme said the Governors wouldn’t have taken the position they took for withdrawal of the bills from the National Assembly a few weeks ago if the Town Hall had taken place earlier.
He specifically told Nigerians that had clarifications made by Taiwo Oyedele on the new formula for distribution of Value Added Tax, VAT, among the three tiers of government, known to governors a few weeks back, reservations expressed about the reform, wouldn’t have arisen.
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Oyedele had in his earlier clarification on some misconceived provisions of the reform bills, explained that the proposed tax reform aimed at shared prosperity for all Nigerians by exempting the vulnerable or the poor from personal income tax and shifting that to those who are gainfully employed, earning up to N1.5 million annually.
According to him, the proposed reform will address the most contentious issue of VAT distribution with a new formula driven by equity and shared prosperity, explaining that the current formula for sharing VAT among states is based on 20% derivation, 50% equality and 30% population.
According to Oyedele, the tax reform proposes a different model of derivation which will attribute VAT to the place of supply and consumption rather than the current model which attributes VAT to the state where it is remitted thereby favouring states with company headquarters.
The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform further stated that the derivation under the new model will account for 60% of VAT distribution for better equity and to discourage any state from seeking to administer VAT as a state tax, which will not only result in much lower revenue for all tiers of government but will impose a higher burden on businesses.
He also debunked the insinuation that some provisions of the tax reform bills are aimed at settling public agencies like the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure, NASENI, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund.
The former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, posited at the Town Hall Conversation that the proposed tax reform would fetch the Northern part of the country $250 billion in years to come, from livestock and exploration of mineral resources.
He said he had read through the four bills and discovered that they are well intended for the economic revival of the country and wealth creation for Nigerians.
Dogara admonished Northern leaders, particularly, Governors, not to wear a cap of regionalism or religiosity at this time but that of leadership.