By Ukpono Ukpong
Tension is rising between Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) and Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA)’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) over the Administration’s revenue harmonisation plan.
The council believes the structure of the plan is offensive to its vital revenue objectives and has expressed preparedness to do battle to warehouse what it sees as its constitutional right.
To this end, Chairman of AMAC, Hon. Christopher Maikalangu, has warned the revenue service to steer clear of any revenue accruable to the council.
The Daily Times gathered that the revenues in contention amount to a princely sum running into several billions of Naira a year.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja yesterday, Maikalangu further urged President Bola Tinubu, security agencies and other relevant authorities to intervene in calling the FCTA-IRS to order with regards to the collection of revenue which he believed belongs to the council.
Represented by the Supervisory Councilor for Special Duties, Hon. Emmanuel Inyang, Maikalangu said AMAC has never signed any agreement with the IRS on revenue collection.
Maikalangu recounted that at a recent town hall meeting organized by IRS for FCT’s six Area Councils on revenue harmonisation, the Permanent Secretary, FCTA, Olusade Adesola, who,he said, identified himself as the driver of revenue harmonisation, left the meeting halfway and so was unable to answer questions on the vexed matter -thus leading to inability of participants to reach a consensus.
The AMAC Chairman accused IRS of harassing residents and persons in the Abuja business community under the guise of collecting taxes, pointing out that same taxes had already been paid to AMAC.
Maikalangu described this as double taxation.
Acknowledging that there is a subsisting court judgment barring the AMAC Chairman from sub-letting revenue collection to a third party, he queried IRS to explain where it derived its powers to collect revenue on behalf of AMAC.
Maikalangu said, by its alleged actions, IRS is preparing the grounds for anarchy and breakdown of law and order by causing its agents to harass residents within the council area for revenue, including the ‘park and pay’ policy, which, he claimed, is AMAC’s legal revenue subhead.
The Council Chairman, therefore, urged President Tinubu and relevant authorities to, as a matter of urgency, call the IRS to order before it plunges AMAC and the FCT into anarchy in harassing residents to pay taxes they had already paid to AMAC, some even as far back as 2010.
Maikalangu said that the council remains law abiding and hence will not take laws into its hands, but warned that the council will not sit idly and watch IRS engage in illegalities such as collecting revenue meant for AMAC.
Maikalangu advised residents not to pay revenue to agents purporting to be FCT IRS, otherwise they will pay double as only revenue paid into AMAC account will be acceptable.
In the same breath, Maikalangu urged AMAC residents not to pay revenue to FCT IRS, but to challenge any official from the Service to go to court for an order that will explain how it came about collecting revenue for AMAC.
Meanwhile, all efforts to reach the Acting Chairman, FCT IRS, Abdullahi Haruna, to react to the allegations, proved abortive as several calls put across to his phone number were neither answered nor calls returned.
Similarly, the Head, Corporate Communication, FCT IRS, Mustapha Ismaila, who answered our call to him, said he was driving and promised to call back.
Thereafter, he did neither answered calls put to his phone hours later nor returned the call as promised.
Credit: DAILY TRUST.
