Nami made the disclosure at the ‘Public Presentation and
Breakdown of the Highlights of the 2022 Appropriation Bill’ in Abuja on Friday.
He said that in spite of the 41 million tax payers in the
country, Nigeria still earned lower than what its counterparts across Africa
generates from Personal Income Taxes (PIT).
“If you also compare that with South Africa where they have
a total population of about 60 million people, with just 4 million taxpayers,
the total personal income tax paid in South Africa last year was about N13
trillion. You can now see that these things are not adding up.
“The number of billionaires in Lagos alone are more than the
number of billionaires in the whole of South Africa but what we generated as
PIT by Lagos State was low.
“So if we don’t pay these taxes, there is no way the
government will be able to provide the social amenities required, the critical
infrastructure required for the wellbeing of the country,” Nami said.
He said that the total collection up to Sept. 31 which has
not been fully reconciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the
Nigerian Customs is about N4.2 trillion. From this amount, oil related taxes
accounted for only 22 per cent which is N950 billion only, the non oil taxes
generated was within that period is N3.3 trillion.
“People are not willing to pay even when they are appointed
as agent of collection, whatever they have collected they find it difficult to
remit.
“We assume that we are a rich country, I don’t think that is
correct, we only have the potential to be rich, because we have a very huge
population of about 200 million.
“If you look at it from the rate of taxes paid in Saudi
Arabia with a population of 10 million people, the VAT rate is as high as 15
per cent and what we have in Nigeria is just 7.5 per cent,” Nami said.
He also said that Nigeria, an oil-producing country, could
not be compared to a small country like Saudi Arabia, saying “we are still not
there.”
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs
Zainab Ahmed, urged citizens to always pay their taxes.
“The money from taxes will go a long way, by providing
social amenities, among others.”
Ahmed said that efforts aimed at addressing revenue leakages
include dimensioning cost of tax waivers and promoting policy dialogue and
transparency around tax waiver regimes.
She also said that achieving government budget objectives
requires bold, decisive and urgent actions.
“The government remains mindful of the need to provide
safety nets to cushion the impact of reform measures on the vulnerable segments
of the population.”
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