Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has urged Nigerians to support the drive towards the full digitalisation of tax administration, saying it is a key driver of development.
Osinbajo spoke at the Annual Tax Conference of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) in Abuja. The event had as its theme “Global disruption, taxation and digitalisation: implication for socio-economic development”.
Osinbajo, who was represented by the Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Muhammad Nami, said the Buhari administration has learnt from the market trends on reliable revenue sources.
“You are aware that until our administration started to diversify the economy, past administrations have relied almost exclusively in revenue from crude oil. We have, however, learnt from recent market trends that crude oil like other commodities is not a sustainable source of domestic revenue.
“This, he noted is because of hike of the prices of crude oil since 2015 when his administration started has affected energy which will in turn further weaken the demand of crude oil. For this reason, the Vice President said that everyone must be prepared to pay their fair share of taxes and also ensure that others do the same.
“If we must make progress as a nation, all of us, country men and women must surrender an adequate part of our substances for the sake of our national development, social harmony and political stability and economic growth.”
He further spoke on digitalisation of tax administration, saying that it has displaced the traditional approach as the way of doing business have changed, hence. “Our government has continued to heavily invest in the automation of tax administrative processes and digital infrastructure,” he added.
He added that his government is making tax policy change to provide an enabling environment.
Last year, he said, President Muhammadu Buhari directed stakeholders, government ministries, departments and agencies to support the tax automation drive with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in accessing their data processing system, noting that it is important that government be involved in revenue.
Osinbajo added that lingering issues like insecurity, crimes, inadequate social infrastructure could only be addressed if there is adequate hand of revenue for the government. He therefore urged Nigerians to “comply with tax rules, encourage others to comply, and report those not complying”. This, he said would help build a Nigeria of our dream and develop the future that we all deserve for the generation and the one to come.
The President of the institute, Adeshina Adedayo, first congratulated the Chairman and members of the Annual Tax Conference for making the event a success. He, in turn, noted that the theme was directed at nation building and development. He highlighted some disruptive impacts on the nation’s economy, some of which are the suspension of country by country reporting regulations, treaty abuse, harmful tax completion, among others.
He has therefore urged tax professionals “to be more resilient and profer lasting solutions to mitigate these disruptions”.
