Chairman of the presidential committee on fiscal policy and tax reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, said Sunday no government agency has been stopped from collecting revenue, noting his team’s been mandated to harmonise tax collection.
Oyedele, a former fiscal policy partner and Africa tax leader at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, PwC, also said the federal government did not intend to introduce new taxes.
The fiscal policy expert spoke on Sunday, in a post on X, addressing some frequently asked questions, FAQs, about the committee.
However, Oyedele said many of the agencies would rather focus on their primary functions, hence, the committee planned to harmonise revenue collection.
He said: “No agency has been stopped from collecting revenue as many of them are empowered to do so by law.
”However, many of the agencies would rather focus on their primary functions, hence we intend to harmonise the fragmented revenue collection functions into one agency for each government.
“This is the case in many countries, including the leading tax regimes in Africa. This reform will help improve efficiency and enable the agencies to focus on their primary mandates for the overall benefit of the economy.”
He clarified that while the committee did not intend to introduce new taxes, it also didn’t want to impose higher tax rates.
“Rather, our mandate is to reduce the number of taxes and levies while harmonizing revenue collection to reduce the burden on the people and businesses.
“The objective is to avoid taxing investment, capital, production or poverty. We plan to review and re-enact the major tax laws in a holistic manner thereby limiting the necessity for frequent changes through annual finance acts,” he said.