The Coordinating Minister for the
Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has commended the
European Union (EU) for the remittance of Pay-As-You-Earn PAYE of its local
staff since 2012.
Okonjo-Iweala made the commendation in Abuja
today at a one-day sensitization workshop for Local Staff of Embassies on PAYE,
Withholding Tax (WHT), Value Added Tax (VAT) on Contracts, and Taxpayer
Identification Number (TIN).
The workshop is to facilitate partnership and
collaboration between FIRS and Foreign Missions, International Organisations to
deduct and remit their local staff, Pay-As-You-Earn to relevant tax authorities.
Represented by the Ministry’s Permanent
Secretary, Kefas Danladi, the minister said the Federal Inland Revenue Service
(FIRS)’ efforts to grow the nation’s revenue base remain a step in the right
direction, most especially, in the face of the dwindling oil income.
Okonjo-lweala noted that everybody wants
development, but nobody wants to pay tax that fuels development,stressing that
the importance of taxation cannot be over emphasised, especially in the wake of
dwindling income from oil revenue.
The minister urged the Service to ensure
administrative mechanisms for easy access to TIN that would in turn fast-track
clearance of goods at the nation’s sea-ports as well as issuance of Tax
Clearance Certificates (TCC) to deserving taxpayers.
That diplomats and Ambassadors are exempted
from payment of taxes by Article 23 of the Vienna Convention though such
exemption does not cover their local staff, local contractors and vendors.
No comments:
Post a Comment