FG rejects IMF’s recommendation on taxes
In response to the International Monetary Fund’s recommendation that Nigeria increases its revenue through tax, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed has said the country has no plans to effect any such hike.
Zainab disclosed this while addressing Nigerian journalists on the participation of the Nigerian delegation at the annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank in Bali, Indonesia, yesterday.
Responding to a question on the recommendation of the fund, the minister said: “To change the taxes means we will review the tax laws, that may be a process we will address in the future. Right now we don’t have any plan to review upward taxes in Nigeria. We don’t have such plans. Instead what we are trying to do is to identify people who are supposed to pay tax but they are not paying.
“A lot of effort is being put to expand the tax base as well as improving the tax collecting processes and it is already yielding results. We have seen our tax base grow from 13 million to 19 million. That number is not enough for a country of 185 million but we are doing a lot of work in this regard,’’ she stated.
Daily Trust
