Churches and mosques in Lagos State may now have to "give unto Caeser, what is Caeser's and render to God, what is God's," as the 2012 fiscal regime will now include activities in those religious houses under the state's tax net. Besides, tenants will, from January, deduct five per cent of rents payable as withholding tax and remit same into the government's treasury.
Speaking at the third Lagos State
Taxation Stakeholders Conference, held recently in Ikeja, Governor Babatunde
Raji Fashola, explained that the new tax regime was scripted to enhance the
state's revenue base and promote effectiveness of governance. Fashola explained
that churches and mosques, who owned buildings used for business purposes, were
not exempted from paying taxes to the government because they earn income from
such businesses.
He said: "On the churches
and the mosque, let us remember that whether it was a church or a mosque, it
was first a building. And therefore, it is built with the same building
materials that were used to build other private facilities.
"Nobody knows the difference
at that time. And therefore, it cannot escape the regulatory law of the state
in making building safe, it must comply. It is only when those, who are
ordained dedicate the building to the propagation of religion that it becomes a
church.
"In the same way, churches
own facilities. Churches that run businesses should give something back to the
government. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and render unto God what is
God's.”
The governor also said tax should
be paid on gifts received by individuals and urged Lagos residents to pay their taxes promptly
so that government would have the money to carry out developmental projects.
He, however, appealed to the
people to be more tax compliant. "If more people voluntarily pay the right
amount of income taxes, the government will find enough money it needs to
transform the state,'' he stated.
On the five per cent withholding
tax, Fashola said everybody, who pays rent, is collecting agents for the tax.
"Everybody, who pays money to a doctor, lawyer for the services they
rendered to him, is our collecting agent for that withholding tax.
"And we expect that they
fairly collect, issue receipt and account for them. Once we have all of those
documents and records, it should be easy for us at the end of the tax
accounting year to set off all of these," he said. Fashola said collection
of withholding tax would be part of government revenue drive in the New Year.
He promised to enforce the payment of the tax. He said withholding tax would be
collected on rent, dividend, contract, among others, stressing that in the case
of rent, the tenants would serve as the collecting agents of withholding tax
from the landlords for the services rendered.
He explained that the only way to
make life as good as they are in the other jurisdictions such as Europe was for the people to provide the government with
more resources to do so.
“We have the idea, we have signed
on to work and really, whether you think we can do it or not, I think our
experience and our record in the past four years show clearly that even if you
disbelieve what we say, the evidence before you today makes it difficult for
you to disbelieve what we have done and it speaks of what we can do if you give
us the chance," he added
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