The Enugu state government says it has recorded over 200 percent increase in revenue generated from tax collection especially from the informal sector.
The Executive Chairman, Enugu state Internal Revenue Service, Emmanuel Ekene Nnamani made this known while interacting with newsmen in his office.
Nnamani said that a great improvement has been recorded even in the formal sector where he said that people had remained adamant in paying their tax.
“We have seen a lot of companies trying to pay their tax and with the enforcement currently going on, we are only but sending a message that we are not leaving any stone unturned. If you have not complied with our tax payment, you better now begin to comply. Please comply now,” Nnamani pleaded.
The Executive Chairman also called on shopping malls, including all hotels in Enugu to pay their purchase taxes, noting that purchase tax is “very critical to us as we would stop at nothing to ensure that we enforce these payments.
“You can see a lot of projects the state government has embarked upon. These projects you don’t do them by mere wishes. It requires money you get me.. we are not asking people to pay more than they are supposed to pay that is what we are asking people to do,” Nnamani stated.
Profit Measurement
When asked about parameters to measure profit, Nnamani noted:
“For companies we are not the ones collecting their income tax. What we collect is tax regarding individual employees of these companies as that is what the law empowers us to collect
“For the informal sector we are using presumptive tax model. You know in this country we lack data. A Keke man can not tell you how much he makes in a day or year. So we use what is called presumptive tax model which is accepted by the joint tax board. And what we accessing them is minimum, the most basic, and we seek compliance,” he said.
Despite the significant improvement in tax payment, Nnamani claims that Enugu state still has hundreds of millions of naira unpaid taxes ranging from year 2015 to date. According to him, some companies refused to pay and those who paid, under-paid.
“Imagine a company that has about 30 staff remitting N5000 naira just as they wish to government on a monthly basis. When they do that, we go on tax recovery and tax audit to asertain what you are suppose to pay as tax, subtract what you paid and raise liability.
“When we raise these liabilities we inform them through demand notices for them to pay. When they don’t pay, we issue then with warning letters and our intention to sue. So we do everything to comply with the laws,” Nnamani stated.
The Internal Revenue Service Chairman however warned every business in Enugu to comply with the state’s tax payment and liabilities as it is supposed to be, saying that Enugu state is losing from non payment of tax.
“It is huge, we can not be able to give you a specific figure, but it is huge. If we say 10% is captured, that tells you a whole lot of things
“If in Enugu the available data with the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC and other entities that have the data say Enugu has over 5000 registered companies and entities, and when you come to PAYE you are only seeing 500 to 600, that tells you a whole lot of stories,” he said.
When asked about waiver given to some businesses by the last administration, Ekene Nnamani said… “We are progressive, what we are saying is that from the time we started our administration, pay your tax. We are not giving any waver
“And let me also let you people know that any government that waves tax also waves development. And because we have not been able to access the level of waver in development, we are only interested in the waver of tax. The question is, how much do we pay in tax that we seek waver! Pay your tax and demand responsibility from government
“Don’t ask for waver because what they waved for you cannot be compared to the development because you cannot develop yourself. When individuals pay 1000 naira each and 1million people pay, you have given government 1billion naira
“The 1000 naira is two bottles of beer.. hope you’re getting me. 1million people have given government 1billion naira. You can imagine what that amount can do in constructing street roads and putting street lights. So don’t seek waver, i should pay my tax and demand responsibility from government. Let us remove that mindset of waver as it is a wrong approach to governance,” Nnamani stated.
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