The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has disclosed that a truck driver spends more than N450,000 as levies to transport food items such as yams from the northern part of the country to the south.
Oyedele shared this information while speaking at the 2024 annual cooperate forum hosted by Access Bank in Lagos.
The committee head said the multiplicity in taxes most of which are not official have added to the high prices of goods and services in the country.
According to him, it’s important that the country diagnose its tax and fiscal policies to ensure economic growth and development.
“We have over sixty official taxes. Unofficially, we counted more than 200 taxes. Like the Minister of Finance said, more than percent of our revenues from taxes come from less than 10 taxes. Why do we have over 200? That’s insane.
“Anything that moves has a tax. There is tax for wheelbarrow, bicycle, TV etc. If you want transport yams for the north to the south, some of the truckers we spoke to budgeted more than four fifty thousand naira, just to pay legal and illegal taxes along the way.
“It’s important that we diagnose our problems probably. Otherwise, our intentions are irrelevant. If you diagnose your problems correctly, your outcomes will be very different from your aspirations,” Oyedele said.
Backstory
Nairametrics had earlier reported that the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms headed by Taiwo Oyedele is proposing a national reduction of the number of taxes collected across the country from around sixty to less than ten.
The committee believes this tax and fiscal policy will help reduce bottlenecks and spur growth in the real economy.
Oyedele reported that a staggering 62 taxes are officially gathered across various government tiers in the nation. He stated this imposed a heavy burden on Nigerian business operators.
He also said that the several informal taxes being collected across the country.
According to him, the reduction of the taxes will spur economic activities in the country, particularly in the small scale businesses sector.
What you should know
The federal government’s ongoing tax reform initiative was launched following the establishment of a tax and fiscal policy committee by President Bola Tinubu in August 2023.
The committee is headed by renowned tax master, Taiwo Oyedele.
It is tasked with creating a new tax framework to drive economic growth and development across the country.
As part of its mandate, the committee has proposed various reforms, including an increase in Value Added Tax (VAT) and the introduction of tax exemptions for low-income earners, among other measures.