Tax increase now will be suicidal – Expert

The Federal Government has been advised to jettison any proposition for hike of tax or VAT due to the prevailing economic hardship in the country.

Mrs Adebimpe Balogun, a consultant tax expert and first female past president of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria who gave the advice as the lead speaker at the 8th Wole Soyinka Centre for Media Lecture Series said any tax increase at this time would be suicidal.

Speaking on the theme, ‘Tax Education, National Development and the Role of the Media’, she said “dwindling oil revenue has made it pertinent for every state to grow its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), but it is not the time to increase taxes.”

She said the government should be more interested in expanding the tax base to capture portfolio contractors and transactions that escape the drag net of the tax agencies.

Adebimpe, with 35 years of tax administration experience, queried the continuous provision of incentives to operators in the oil and gas sector in the face of reduced earnings from the sector.

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