The Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zacch Adedeji, has restated the agency’s commitment not to introduce additional taxes in the country.
Adedeji stated this on Wednesday, when the Chief Executive
Officer of Guinness Nigeria Plc, Adebayo Alli, led the management team of the
company on a visit to the Revenue House in Abuja.
The FIRS boss, in a statement signed by the Special Adviser
on Media to the FIRS chairman, Dare
Adekanmbi, was quoted as saying, “The President gave a directive that he wants
a single digit tax in the country, meaning that the maximum number of taxes we
will have after the work of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax
Reforms will be nine taxes.
“For us at FIRS, we have responded to that directive. We
want to grow the pie such that even if we are taking the same percentage of the
bigger pie, the result will be huge.
“By God’s grace, we
will not introduce additional taxes nor increase any form of tax. We are only
determined to increase the pie. We have restructured our operations at FIRS in
such a way that we are now effectively carrying out our duty of assessing,
collecting and accounting for taxes. We used to have functional types of taxes,
but we have identified that the only customers we have are the taxpayers.”
He noted that FIRS had improved the way it relates with
customers by rearranging “our operations based on our customers, using their
turnover as the basis to categorise them into large, medium and small”.
He added that President Bola Tinubu, through the consumer
credit scheme recently introduced, aimed at increasing the purchasing power of
Nigerians to boost the productive capacity of companies and stimulate growth.
“In a couple of days, the consumer credit scheme will be
launched and what that will do is really set the right fundamentals, especially
for the kind of products you sell.
“In an economy of our size, it will be extremely difficult
if we don’t have a consumer credit scheme. People need to eat before they
drink. But when they have credit to buy things, this gives them more money that
they can use to come to drink and relax after work.
“More so, the President has also directed the commencement
of a single window platform for your logistics at the ports. So, instead of
having to pay in many places, you can now do that through the platform, most
especially for companies like yours. You know your products before they come
into the country, so you pay before they arrive, as the issue of port
congestion that delays the time you get your raw materials has been taken care
of now,” the FIRS boss said.
Earlier, the Guinness CEO pledged that the company would
continue to do business in the country, notwithstanding the macro-economic
challenges being faced.
“We have come to know FIRS more and tell you a little bit
about who we are as a large taxpayer so you can understand our world and the
value we add to Nigeria, despite the macroeconomic situation facing us,” he
stated.
He assured the FIRS chairman that Guinness would continue to
invest in the country, just as he sought assurances from the tax authority in
terms of the role it would play “in getting the economy back on the right path
from the recovery point of view”.
Foreign exchange expenses eroded the operating profit of
Guinness Nigeria in 2023, resulting in a N5.23bn loss.
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