Tax Justice And Governance Network, KADIRS Partner On Tax Reforms In Kaduna

Chairman, Kaduna State Internal Revenue Services (KADIRS), Zaid Abubakar said on Monday that, over 30,000 viable companies in Kaduna State don’t pay their taxes while a few that pays don’t pay what they suppose to pay.

He also decried failure of the 23 local government in the State to remit the backlog of remittances of Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) and withholding taxes between 2013-2014 while plans have been concluded to audit their (LGs) 2015-2018 financial years.

The Chairman stated these yesterday while playing host to a group of civil society organisations under Tax Justice and Governance Platform which was formed in September with interest in tax reforms in Kaduna State.

The leader of that team, Barrister Rebecca Sako-John, had briefed the KADIRS boss on the objectives and areas of concern of the group which include but not limited to sensitising people on their responsibility on tax and what they should expect in return; campaigning fair tax in the State by way of partnership with the agency.

One of the key issues we want to address, she said, was that of duplication of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) saying, “we want to see the possibility of maintaining a quarterly publication of tax collected in the State so people can understand and begin to appreciate the need to pay their taxes. It is cheaper and easier to publish it online.”

She continued, “campaign for tax for justice is another thing we want to see. We want to see a situation, for example, when the market people pay their taxes, can we see them having a good toilet facility they can see which will in turn, improve and encourage prompt payment of taxes.”

Responding, Chairman, KADIRS, Zaid Abubakar, thanked the team and expressed readiness of his agency to work with the Network since they have one thing in common which is tax justice in Kaduna, Kafanchan and Zaria.

“In the last few months we have been in office, we have been coming up with innovations to improve our tax system in Kaduna State and by the time our website comes up, we shall be uploading our reports.

“We are looking at the possibility of starting uploading our report online by the first quarter of 2020.

“We want to be the first state in Nigeria where people can have access to their tax clearance within 48 hours so far they pay their taxes correctly. We are also upgrading our clients side to make it possible for them to access their tax identification number (TIN) online.

On tax for service he said, “People are not paying taxes. For example, if we put it in ratio 1-10, Kaduna is not even in 4. We are going to do a lot of awareness and we may upgrade to enforcement which is captured in the tax laws.”

On duplication of tax between the local and state government he said, “Inter Switch has been engaged and they have promised us that there won’t be issue around reconciliation because each LG has a mobile agent which enable both the LG and state to know what they have generated.

“2013-2014 liability is still hanging on all the 23 LGs. All LGs have a backlog of remittances of PAYE and withholding taxes.

“We are also going to serve them notice of audit of their 2015-2018. If they fail to comply, we will go to Abuja and deduct what they are owing us direct from the source.

“Another issue here is that, more than 30,000 companies in Kaduna, Kafanchan and Zaria who don’t pay their taxes and some of them that do, they only pay meagre amount,” he said.