The Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) has called on the Federal Government to address the trust issues of the citizenry to drive the collection of tax in the country.
The President and Chairman of Council, CITN, Chief Adesina Adedayo, disclosed this in Abuja on Friday at a Maiden Distinguished Personality Lecture in honour of Dr Ifueko Okauru, organised by the Society of Women in Taxation (SWIT).
The event also featured ambassadorial awards to students for their contributions toward tax awareness.
Adedayo, who was represented by the Vice President of CITN, Mr Samuel Agbeluyi, said that the country was still under 7 per cent collection of its tax from Nigerians.
According to him, we are still below the 15 er cent bench mark in West Africa and a lot of things could be responsible for this.
“I will start with the trust deficit, many of the citizens don’t believe the government. When you give money to the government to manage, the citizens want to see what they are using the money for.
“So, if you want to improve tax revenue in the country, then we need to do a lot in reducing the trust deficit by making sure that the tax revenue collected is properly used and accounted for,” he said.
He, therefore, said that once the tax collected were used in providing infrastructure in the country, the citizens would be willing to pay their tax even without being compelled to do do.
Also, the National Chairperson of SWIT, Dr Biola Adimula, said that the students who were given the ambassadorial awards, was to propagate the message of tax in their various communities.
Adimula said that the women’s society group worked primarily to ensure that the society knew about the correct tax to pay through sensitisation.
She said to achieve this, the society had put in place a lot of sensitisation programmes especially in the school environment to educate the public on the right tax to address the issues of double taxation or tax deviation.
She, therefore, said that there was a need for continuous improvement in revenue generation for the government to address the problem of the infrastructural deficit while urging the government to use rightly taxpayers’ money judiciously.
“With all these responsibilities, we expect that the government at all levels, national and states, and even the local government should always support the activities of SWIT positively, morally and financially.
“The essence of this is to help the government to do their job and the government is the Chief beneficiary of some of these activities and so we urge them to continue to support the tax profession,” she said.
Meanwhile, the CITN Council Member, Mrs. Ruth Arokoyo advocate that government should invest more in technology to drive tax revenue in the country.
