Wednesday, December 04, 2024 - Jimoh Ibrahim, Senator representing Ondo South Senatorial district, has said rich Nigerians should be made to pay taxes.
According
to Ibrahim, it’s a global practice that when an economic crisis hits a nation,
the government directs its policies toward making the rich citizens pay heavy
taxes to help the nation overcome its economic problems.
Senator
Ibrahim stated this while briefing the Senate Press Corps after plenary on
Tuesday evening, December 3.
He gave
clarification on his intervention at plenary on the consideration of the report
of the joint committees on Finance and National Planning and Economic Affairs
on the 2025-2027 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy
Paper (FSP).
Jimoh said
it would be the first time that the nation would tax wealthy citizens, adding
that adequate taxing of economic net worth Nigerians was a means of shoring up
the nation’s revenue base.
“My worry
is that the rich in Nigeria are not paying enough taxes in order to be a good
jolly fellow with the poor.
“In other
countries, taxes are paid on transactions. The rich need to pay more taxes and
one of the areas where our economic gap can be covered is when we address those
lacuna.
“Luxury
taxes should be monitored and collected. We should look at a law that will
police transactional tax on the rich,” he said.
To make
this effective, he said “there should be an adequate data bank of the taxable
rich”.
“GDP to tax
ratio in Nigeria is 18 percent, while the test 72 percent are not taxed.
“It is
unfortunate economically that 72 percent of the Nigerian population are not in
the tax net,” he added.
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