Manufacturers Warn Against FG Plans to Increase Tax, VAT
Manufacturers have warned the federal government against plans to increase taxation generally, including Value Added Tax (VAT).
The Director General of Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) NECA’s Timothy Olawale, told President Muhammadu Buhari during a courtesy visit that such increase will add to the woes of manufacturers and indeed other Nigerians.
Olawale said that such tax increase will raise the burden of companies to the extent that it will be unbearable.
Speaking to newsmen in Abuja, the NECA DG said that already many businesses were suffering a lot of burden, adding that an increase in tax will affect the companies drastically.
Olawale said, “we had advised that rather than resort to any form of increase in taxation, what government should be looking at is putting mechanism in place to widen the tax net in such a way that almost 65 per cent of non-compliant taxpayers are captured in the tax net. That way, more revenue will accrue into the coffers of the government. We specifically also voiced our concern with the suggestion and proposal out there that value added tax should be increased.
“We have advised government that if it comes to be, it will reduce the purchasing power of Nigerian workers as well as the poor masses that the president, as we know, is working hard to improve their lot. We are saying that if government must as a matter of an avoidable necessity increase VAT, it should target luxury goods as well as the extra affluence in the society, not the poor masses or consumption goods and services that are for the benefit of the masses”.
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