• SPPG alumnus advocates tax reforms
Nigeria loses about $18 billion yearly to profit shifting, aggressive tax avoidance, and other sharp practices by some multinational corporations transacting in the country.
This was disclosed by the Minister of State for Finance, Dr Doris Uzoka-Anite, in Abuja yesterday at a national conference on Illicit Financial Flows. She described illicit financial flows as a hydra-headed monster that must be eradicated, adding that the practice encompasses terrorism financing and corporate tax evasions.
The minister said the Federal Government was focusing on conversations around tax avoidance and tax evasion.
“It is estimated that Nigeria loses about $18 billion annually due to profit-shifting and aggressive tax avoidance practices, especially by some multinational corporations transacting in Nigeria. Huge sums of money are transferred out of this country, and this robs the country of resources that could be used to finance much-needed public services,” she added.
According to Uzoka-Anite, under President Bola Tinubu, Nigeria is undergoing strategic fiscal reforms aimed at building a resilient, self-reliant economy, driven by revenue and not by debt or by grant.
She observed that for decades, Nigeria had relied heavily on oil revenue, and this had been volatile and unsustainable, hence the reforms, which recognised the urgent need to diversify the revenue base, shifting focus from oil to non-oil sources, particularly tax revenue.
In his remarks, the Executive Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zacch Adedeji, said the scale of illicit flows, especially through aggressive tax avoidance by multinationals, exploiting global arrangements, continued to threaten Nigeria’s fiscal stability. He said FIRS was simplifying its system by championing voluntary compliance by promoting taxpayer education and a simplified system.
MEANWHILE, an alumnus of School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG), Abuja, Dr Samson Abanni, has said the recent signing of Nigeria’s sweeping tax bills may prove as consequential as a general election.
According to him, beneath the promise of simplification and efficiency lies a quiet but profound shift in fiscal power among the Federal Government, states, and long-standing revenue agencies.
He said the private sector saw it, rightly, as a heart surgery on a nation, saying: “But the political block state governments missed their moment to shape the debate over resource control, since it did not bear the brashness of politics, it flew under their radar until it was too late.” He made this known during an interview with The Guardian, adding that they underestimated how deeply it would reshape their fiscal autonomy.
