By Tony Obiechina, ABUJA
The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) on Friday threw its weight behind the controversial tax reforms bills which is presently awaiting third hearing at the National Assembly.
The chief executive officer, NESG, Dr Tayo Aduloju declared the group’s support during an interactive dialogue with journalists in Abuja.
According to him, the bill seeks to allocate the tax burden to those that are benefiting the most from the economic system such as the top earners and profitable enterprises, adding that it aims to simultaneously achieve set goals,
His words, “One is right tax, which was the President’s first instruction to us -tax the harvest, not the seed. The second was this idea that if you already have the working poor, taxing the working poor does not solve any problems.
In fact, we are better off not giving social investments to anybody, right, and not taxing the working poor. Because at least what they get, they keep for themselves.
“When you say you are doing social investment, they don’t get it. So, for us, it was a way to say, build a better system. The bills seek to build a better social security system because it identifies those whose income falls already into working poor and exempts them. It identifies businesses that the system already has made vulnerable and exempts them.
“And I think if the bill doesn’t win on anything, you know, Nigerians will support the fact that here, for the first time, is a set of bills that win on the fundamental socioeconomic adjustments required for proper transitions to a taxable level of economic strata, I think that’s important,” he said.
“I think the National Assembly should commence its own deep dive into fiscal federalism across board and that’s a process it should go on. Because, as you can see, this unfinished conversation will keep coming up. It’s just that in this instance, tax is the tax component that brought it out and that’s why everybody’s a bit geared about it.
“So we support it 100 percent. The bill is the position we have taken because we have put our weight, the weight of our analytics and support behind it”.
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