Rice cake seller wins micro-business tax award in Kaduna

Zainab Mai-Masa, a spongy rice cake seller, has received the Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KADIRS) 2020 micro business tax award.

Mai-Masa who is a 60-year-old widow sells Waina, a northern snack, at Signboard, Unguwan Dosa Junction in Kaduna.

The waina seller was among the 23 taxpayers, revenue-generating agencies, and officials that were honoured by KADIRS at its 2020 Grand Dinner and Award Night on Friday in Kaduna.

Zaid Abubakar, KADIRS executive chairman, explained that Mai-Masa’s business falls under the presumptive tax in the informal sector and required to pay N50,000 by law.

“The highest tax any micro-business owner ever paid in the state was N50,000, but she decided to pay N100,000 voluntarily,” Abubakar said.

“This is worthy of recognition and encouragement for other micro-business owners to emulate and join other voluntary taxpayers in performing their civic duty of paying tax as and when due.”

Mai-Masa thanked KADIRS for the recognition and explained that she was motivated to pay the tax because of the visible infrastructural development taking place across the state.

The KADIRS chairman explained that the essence of the award was to motivate taxpayers in the state to continue to pay taxes voluntarily as and when due.

“With the support of all stakeholders, our IGR has continued to record unprecedented growth from N12 billion in 2012 to over N50 billion in 2020 despite the challenges posed by COVID-19 pandemic.

“For us to do more this year and beyond the award was to recognise outstanding taxpayers.

“The first category is for the taxpayers, the second for the collaborating ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and the third category is the staff of the service.

“The fourth category is for technical partners who fill the gap in our capacity to deliver on our mandate.”

The Nigerian Breweries Plc received the highest taxpayer, Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) award; Sintax Nigeria got the most efficient filing, PAYE award, while Mother Cat Nigeria received the highest withholding taxpayer award.

Nasir el-Rufai, who was represented by Haziza Balarabe, the deputy governor, commended KADIRS for the outstanding performance and for consistently raising the bar of IGR collection in the state.

He assured taxpayers that their monies were being put to good use with the massive infrastructural development and improvement in the quality of health and education services in the state.