A bill seeking to raise value
added tax (VAT) to 7.5% from 5% has passed second reading at the senate — but
not without some drama.
The federal executive council
(FEC) approved an increase in VAT in September.
The bill entitled: ‘Nigeria tax
and fiscal law, 2019’, is sponsored by Yahaya Abdullahi, senate majority
leader.
After Abdullahi moved a motion
for the commencement of debate on the bill and read his lead paper, some
senators complained that they did not know what the proposed legislation
entails because they did not have copies of it.
Binos Yaroe, senator representing
Adamawa south, raising a point of order, drew the attention of Senate President
Ahmad Lawan to the fact that they did not have copies of the bill.
Yaroe said according to senate
rules, every senator is meant to have copies of it.
“Our rules say that printed
copies of the bill shall as soon as possible be sent to every senator,” he
said.
“We are at the stage of the
second reading of this bill. I don’t know for others but I have not received
the bill, I don’t know how we can debate a bill that we have not received.”
Lawan noted his point but said
the debate on it will still go on.
“We are at this point going to
debate the general principles of the bill and in line with our tradition,
convention here, even the appropriations bill that we debate, we don’t have the
bill normally,” he said.
Betty Apiafi, senator
representing Rivers west, also raised the same concern, but the senate
president said: “When the senate committee on finance reports this, the bill
will be made available and we can compare with what we are amending.”
He then ruled her out of order.
Earlier, the senate leader said
the bill is seeking five objectives.
“The bill has five strategic
objectives, the first one is to promote fiscal equity by mitigating instances
of regressive taxation. The second one is to reform domestic tax laws to align
with global best practices,” Yahaya said.
“The third is to introduce tax
incentives for investment in infrastructure. The fourth objective is to support
ongoing ease of doing business reforms and the fifth objective is to raise
revenues for government including proposal to increase the value added tax
(VAT) from 5% to 7.5%.”
He added that the bill when
passed will amend the company tax CAP C21 laws of the federation of Nigeria
2004, VAT CAP 4 2007, customs and excise tariff act CAP C49 laws of the
federation, personal income tax E8 laws of the federation, capital gains tax act
CAP C1 laws of the federation, stock duty act 58 laws of the federation and
petroleum profit tax law.
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com