Taiwo Oyedele proposes tax exemptions for vulnerable people

Taiwo Oyedele, chairman of the presidential fiscal policy and tax reforms committee, has proposed that the federal government exempt vulnerable people from paying taxes.

Oyedele was speaking on Politics Today on Channels TV on Friday.

“Sadly, the system we have today is trying to tax everything and everybody. You know, if it moves, tax it; if it moves again, tax it even more. That seems to be the approach we have today,” he said.

“You would imagine that those who are selling sachets of water, which we call pure water, how much possibly can be their capital plus profits.

“With all the hard work, people are just trying to see if they can find N800 or N1,000 a day to take care of themselves and their families, which would cover their transport or feeding.

“But when we were speaking to market traders associations, they told us that these guys are paying about six to seven different levies every single day, and they give them some form of sticker.

“And that clearly is not acceptable. We’ve also seen truckers who are moving produce, including food, from one state to another have to pay more than N450,000 in one single trip. Sometimes the stickers add up to more than 50.

“So at the end of the day, this is the reason why, for example, if you looked at the last inflation numbers, even just between rural areas and urban areas, the difference in inflation is about 500 basis points, which is about 5 percent, which you can only just explain by way of transportation but by the time you add the taxes to it.

“You see, that is one of the reasons why that differential is so significant.”

According to Oyedele, other decent societies have used these methods and it worked for them.

He said this approach would fight tax evasion and stop people from breaking the law.

“So we think that the approach to adopt is to exempt some of these vulnerable people, including [the sellers of] sachet pure water,” he said.

The tax expert also said the federal government need to stop asking people how much they earn to tax them.

“We also believe that we should stop asking people how much they earn so we can tax them, we should first support them to be able to grow and create wealth, and then use intelligence to tell them how much they have earned,” Oyedele said.

“So that way, we are sure that evasion and people who try to live above the law are a thing of the past. That’s how the decent society that we aspire to be like has been able to develop economics.”

Oyedele has been advocating for different tax reforms and relief for the informal sector.

In May, his committee announced that the federal government is working on a system that will provide tax relief to 95 percent of the informal sector.

Oyedele said the plan is to exempt businesses earning N25 million a year or less, from the various taxes hindering their progress over time.