The leadership of the House of Representatives on Tuesday disclosed plans to organise public hearings on the tax reform bills.
As announced by Speaker Tajudeen Abbas during the plenary, the public hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, 26th February 2025 by 10 am at the temporary Chambers of the House.
He explained that some Members who also Chair House Caucuses have been incorporated into the membership of the Committee to handle the Public Hearing to be held at the instance of House Committee on Finance chaired by Hon. Abiodun James Faleke.
He added that some other Members were also randomly picked and incorporated.
Recalled that the tax reform bills passed through Second Reading on Thursday, 12th February, 2025.
Most lawmakers who spoke during the debate on the general principles of the tax reforms bills expressed strong support for the proposed Value Added Tax (VAT) sharing formula of 50% equity, 20% population, and 30% association, as recommended by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF).
One of the lawmakers who vented his opposition against some provisions of the tax reform bills, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Insurance and Actuarial, Hon. Ahmed Jaha observed that concerns were raised at the beginning because of the way it was transmitted to the National Assembly by the Executive.
He said: “First of all, the bill was transmitted despite rejection by the members of the National Economic Council. Despite rejection by the elders across the country, despite rejection by the Governors’ Forum, particularly the Northern Governors’ Forum across the country.
“The second reason is that after studying the bill, members were able to understand that there are some provisions to that particular bill that need to be revisited for the purpose of fairness and good governance.
“That was the reason why it generated a lot of controversies at the very beginning when the bill was presented. In other words, members of the Parliament, particularly in the House of Representatives were not on the same page as usual, that we used to be on the same page when and wherever the need arises. But on this bill, we were to some extent divided, or I can say sharply divided at the very beginning of the bill.”
The lawmaker however noted that, while he disagreed with some of the provisions, there are areas that he had aligned with the provisions of the Bill.
He said: “My position as a person is to maintain the status quo. The highest I can concede as far as my opinion and the opinion of my constituents is to cede 20% based on derivation or based on generation derivation. In other words, wherever these companies have their headquarters, 20% can be given to them.
“That’s what we have currently in Section 40 of the current Act that is governing the VAT distribution. But if it’s based on consumption derivation and there is enough and adequate technology and infrastructure to track consumption, analyse consumption, and distribute or share them accordingly, then to me, it’s a very good deal because there is fairness.
“Instead of you remitting 30% or 20% simply because these companies that generated this money or VAT have been headquartered in certain locations, we give them that money for you to be fair to Nigerians, it’s for you to pay this 30% to where actually the consumption took place.
“So this is where I’m satisfied. And the second area where I am actually satisfied is there is a consensus among all the honourable members that NITDA is not going to be terminated. NASENI is not going to be terminated and TETFund is not going to be terminated, bearing in mind their importance to the national development.
“Particularly NITDA has a role to play in even providing technology for effective and efficient implementation of the tax laws whenever it’s passed. So there is no way you can terminate the life of an instrument that can facilitate the success of a reform.
“Thirdly, on the issue of the Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Revenue Service when passed, or the current FIRS, to be the Chairman of the Board is completely not fair and is completely not right because as said by writers, power corrupts absolute and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
“You cannot be the Chief Executive Officer and at the same time, you are the Chairman of the Board. In other words, you cannot be a judge in your own case when and wherever the need arises.
“The fourth issue where we have accepted to even allow the bill to be read the second time is for us to extract a commitment as earlier presented by the Leader of the House on the fact that we are not going to increase VAT either now or in the next two or three years.
“There is nothing like increasing the VAT but we are all on the same page that the provisions in the reforms can help us in improving our collection efficiency ratio which is very, very important. And then the last one is identification of where the bill is in contradiction with the provision of the Nigerian Constitution because the Constitution is supreme above all other laws of the Federation.
“Section 141 subsection 1 that speaks about the supremacy of the Act has given the Act a position of a deconstitution which you know there is no law that can be as powerful as the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.
He also objected to the proposed inheritance tax which he said was against the provisions of Islam, Christianity, and other faiths.
According to him, Islam was explicit and did not allow tampering with a deceased estate.
He said: “So, either in Christianity or in Islam or even in traditional religion, people protect with high sense of responsibility and obligation the estate of a deceased person when and wherever the need arises.
“Particularly in Islam, you are not even allowed to take even a packet of pure water out of inheritance and give it to somebody that is not the heir or entitled to that particular inheritance.
“So the issue of collecting tax out of what somebody left behind for us is against Islam and I believe it’s against a lot of practices in other religions for somebody to touch that of which we are ready to maintain that,” Hon Jaha noted.
