The director-general of the Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, has said that people in the creative and media sectors must start paying taxes.
Akabueze, who had always maintained that Nigeria has a revenue problem and not a debt problem, as widely believed, also advocated the imposition of more taxes for rich Nigerians in order to improve revenue generation.
This was made known on Monday by Akabueze at the launch of the World Bank’s report titled, ‘Nigeria Public Finance Review: Fiscal Adjustment for Better and Sustained Results, in Abuja.
The budget office boss had insisted that wealthy Nigerians must be made to pay taxes commensurate with their earnings.
Tax the rich well: Akabueze said,
- “We need to tax the rich. We have extremely wealthy people existing side-by-side with extremely poor people. I describe it as an ‘elite conspiracy’ not to distribute a fair share of the nation’s resources.
- “If you own a private jet that is fantastic. If you buy one for yourself, buy one for the country by paying a 100% tax on it. This is not an area of debate.
- “Certain sectors that are growing very well also need to pay taxes. The creative and media– you have all these folks assaulting us daily with the show of their new cars. I don’t see any other option. We have to tax the rich. They should pay taxes commensurate with their earnings.”
Tax more: Also speaking during a panel session, Patience Oniha, director-general of the Debt Management Office (DMO), said she would prefer to have all of Nigeria’s external borrowings as concessional facilities.
She, however, explained that concessional sources were limited and as such others had to be explored.
She further emphasised the need to raise more tax revenue as well as source funds from the nation’s assets rather than ignoring them.
The chief economic adviser to the president, Doyin Salami, while concurring with Oniha, said Nigerians must pay tax for the country to generate revenue or be forced to pay higher interest rates on borrowed funds.
- He said, “If you don’t pay tax, you will pay high-interest rates because if you don’t pay tax, we have to go borrowing and if we borrow, we have to repay the loans with higher interest rates. We have to raise more taxes from the rich for social balance,”
