Peter Bassey|27 September 2016
Tax plays an important role in Nigeria society. It is a strong force for economic development from precolonial, colonial and post colonial eras. And has become the most significant source of revenue in recent times. It is a burden which every citizen must bear to sustain his or her government.
In CRS, the administration of the income tax law is vested in the Cross River State Board of Internal Revenue, which is chaired by the commissioner of Finance, with the Board Director as as the Deputy Chairman, this is inclusive other board members who are representatives from key ministries as enshrined by law.
At the local government level, according to edict of 1977 section (82) indicates the various sources of revenue accruable to a local government. There include fees, levies and rates such as; marriage, birth and death register fee,liquor license fee, naming street fee, merriment and road closure fee, radio and television license fee and slaughter slab fee.
The absence of the synergy between this two tiers of government in Cross River State is worrisome to business owners/operators. It is even more worrisome in the calabar metropolis, where the issue of multiple taxation is now the other of the day. In most cases, a particular tax is levied twice or trice, it is either it is from the internal revenue service, or from a particular ministry still in the state government coffers or from Calabar Municipal Council/Calabar South LGA as the case may be. In fact it is even more confusing to business owners, because as it stands, u can't even ascertain the right channel to pay this levies, due to a whole lot of tax enforcement agencies vis-a-viz arbitrary taxation.
Pitiably enough, with the recent constitution of mobile courts by the Senator Ben Ayade's administration, members of the public are been arrested, intimidated and most times bundled under gun point to a mobile court, who trial them immediately, and reprimand them in Afukang Prisons, if they can't meet up with the fine which ranges from 100,000 naira to 250, 000 naira. The most annoying part of it is that the victim(s) reprimanded are not actually the owners of the business, but employees who were unfortunate to be at the business premises as of the time of arrest.
Consequently, with recent complaints from business establishment in the state, I made effort to reach some principal officers concerned with tax collection in the state but to no avail. I was lucky enough to have on phone the Chairman House Committee on Finance and Appropriation in the CRSHA Rt. Hon. Jones Williams comment on this ugly prevailing trend. Here are his comment.
"The solution to the issue of multiple taxation in the state has been taken care of by this 8th Assembly, through the amendment of the CRS Harmonized Levy Bill 2014. And advise that when such fees and levies are harmonized as prescribes by law, it will cushion the effect of business owners in the state, bring in more business operators, thus increase economic development especially now that the economy of Nigeria is recessed."
Summarily, while I understand the importance of taxation, I am calling on the state government to checkmate the activities of the committee on taxation as well as this mobile courts.
Peter Bassey
Writes from Calabar
Efio-Ita Nyok
