Don’t oppose tax reform bills due to ethnic interest – HURIWA to Northern leaders

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has called on
the Northern governors and senators to focus their attention on economically liberating and empowering their peoples.

The call came as members of the National Assembly are currently divided along regional lines over the Tax Reform Bills recently introduced by President Bola Tinubu.

The rights group further
appealed to Nigerian senators and House of Representatives members to engage in merit-based debates around the new tax reform bills so as to ascertain the long-term impacts, merits or demerits, rather the igniting ethnic and regional tensions over the matter.

“Those who oppose the bills should list out their reasons backed up by scientific body of evidence and with statistics and not on ethnic or regional sentiments,” the group said in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko.

HURIWA said the conversations around the proposed tax reform bills should not be reduced to convoluted political theatrics.

DAILY POST recalls that the President had, on September 3, transmitted four tax reform bills to the National Assembly for consideration.

The bills are the Nigeria Tax Bill 2024, which is expected to provide the fiscal framework for taxation in the country, and the Tax Administration Bill, which will provide a clear and concise legal framework for all taxes in the country and reduce disputes.

Others are the Nigeria Revenue Service Establishment Bill, which will repeal the Federal Inland Revenue Service Act and establish the Nigeria Revenue Service, and the Joint Revenue Board Establishment Bill, which will create a tax tribunal and a tax ombudsman.

DAILY POST reports that the major burning issue around the debate is the proposed paradigm shift to a derivation-based model for Value Added Tax distribution, which would allocate tax revenue to the states where goods and services are consumed, rather than where companies have their headquarters.

The bills have been rejected outrightly by the 19 northern governors and traditional rulers based on unscientific reasons.

The governors, under the aegis of the Northern Governors’ Forum, rejected the new derivation-based model for VAT distribution, insisting that the contents of the bills did not align with the interests of the North and other sub-national entities.

Similarly, the National Economic Council, headed by Vice-President Kashim Shettima, recommended the bills’ withdrawal to allow for wider consultations and consensus building.

Tinubu however insisted that the National Assembly should be allowed to treat the bills.

While the bills have not been presented for a second reading where the principles of the bills will be debated, some lawmakers have expressed divergent views.

Senator Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South) had in a recent interview opposed the bills and vowed to mobilise other lawmakers from the north against them.

Speaking recently, Senator Ogoshi Onawo of Nasarawa South kicked against the bills, saying it was unfair for the government to continue imposing taxes on Nigerians who were battling economic hardship.

Reacting to the development, HURIWA condemned what it described as the ethnicization of the debate on the proposed tax reform bills especially by Northern political elites.

“As for us in the organised human rights community in Nigeria, we sincerely hope that the debates should be healthy, robustly focused on evidence, benefits, merits and demerits.

“And whereby any aspect of the proposed tax reform bills would undermine the existence of the absolutely impoverished Nigerians, then those aspects can be tinkered with so the people aren’t taxed to their untimely deaths.

“But opposing the tax reform bills based on regional interest and not on national interest, is absolutely uncalled for. We must emphasise things that unite us than often going back to our mundane political cleavage in pursuit of ethnic aggrandisement.”