The Federal Government has said it will take over 30 properties linked to companies that have not been paying taxes.
The Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Mr Babatunde Fowler, stated that out of the 2,000 properties of corporate entities identified early this year that were not paying taxes, 561 of them had come forward to make payments.
Fowler said 116 companies claimed not to own any of the properties, adding that 30 of them had actually written to the FIRS that the properties in question did not belong to them.
He said based on the law, the properties would be taken over by the government.
He said, “We have certain private organisations that own properties in Nigeria and have not been paying any taxes.
“So we took a review of all properties and we have about 2,000 that were under corporate ownership and those corporate entities have not paid any tax.
“By law, where a company has not filed or paid any taxes, we have to use estimated assessment based on turnover.
“Out of the 2,000, about 569 have come forward to pay taxes. We have done an assessment of N8bn, while the others have asked for payment by instalment.
“Also, 116 claimed not to own those properties. 30 of them have put it in writing claiming that they do not own the properties in question.
“We have written accordingly to the Ministry of Finance and we believe that the government will take those properties over in line with the law.”
He spoke in Abuja during a media briefing with the Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed.
Also present at the briefing were the Director-General, Debt Management Office, Mrs Patience Oniha; the acting Director-General, Securities and Exchange Commission, Ms Mary Uduk; the Comptroller General of Customs, Hameed Alli; and the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Mahmoud Dutse.
The Minister of Finance, Ahmed, said between May 29, 2015, and December this year, the Federal Government had paid over N6.11tn to settle inherited debts and liabilities to states, contractors, and joint venture partners, among others.
She noted that the inherited debts were paid despite the revenue shortfall experienced by the Federal Government within the last three years.
Giving a breakdown of the amount paid, the finance minister said that $5.4bn (about N1.65tn) was used to pay state governments for the refund of excess deductions made from the Paris Club debt, while $6.8bn (about N2.07tn) was used to settle Joint Venture Cash Call obligations.
She also said that contractors/Export Expansion Grants debt totalling N1.9tn had been settled, adding that about N488bn spent by state governments on road projects had also been paid.
In addition, she said that as part of the Federal Government’s efforts to ensure all pensioners get their entitlements, the ministry had released N54bn to settle outstanding pension arrears in 2014, 2015 and 2016, as well as paid pension claims up to March 2017.
She also said that over N571m had been paid as gratuity to 175 Biafra war-affected retired police officers.
In the area of expenditure performance, the finance minister said that in 2018, despite the revenue shortfall, the Federal Government had been able to pay salaries and fully service its debts obligations.
She said as of December 21, the ministry had released overhead funding for seven months, while N995bn had been released for capital projects
She expressed optimism that the ministry would perform better during the rest of the budget year by driving revenue generation up to improve the fiscal space for spending.
To increase revenue, she said the Federal Government would be implementing more public financial management reforms.
She said, “To take advantage of innovative technologies, we plan to leverage data, technological tools and platforms to foster collaboration, grow the revenue base and improve collections.
“Given the span of stakeholders that form our port community and for the sake of improving ease of doing business, we plan to deploy a national single window/trade platform that we expect to enhance customs collections to about 90 per cent over a few years.
“We will also improve collaboration between our revenue collection agencies including the Nigeria Customs Services, the FIRS and other trade partners to share information and intelligence that will help improve revenue and make collections more efficient.
“Under my tenure as the Finance Minister, I intend to continue championing such digitalisation transformation initiatives that have proven to be a good way forward for our revenue generation drive.”
When asked about some of the taxes that would be affected by the planned increase in tax rate, the minister said that the government would from next year begin the implementation of taxes on luxury items.
She said, “We are exploring the way to increase taxes as well as reduce taxes in some sectors. For Small and Medium Enterprises, what will happen is to reduce taxes. But there are some special taxes that we will be looking at imposing.
“For example, luxury taxes. If you have a private jet, we will be taxing you specially for that. If you have a yacht, we will be charging you for that and also in terms of excise duties, there are also some new areas where excise duties will be introduced.
“We haven’t got all the approvals but one of the major areas might be that of carbonated drinks produced in the country.”
