The West African Tax Administration Forum (WATAF) has agreed to partner with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Tax Justice Platform in Nigeria and other Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to guarantee an effective and efficient tax system for the development of the sub-region.
The representative of WATAF, Mr. Babatunde Oladapo made this known in Abuja recently when delegations from the Tax Justice Platform in Nigeria paid him a visit in his office.
Babatunde Oladapo who welcome the partnership with the platform, which comprising American Solidarity Centre, Oxfam, Tax Justice and Governance Platform (TJ&GP), Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), and other Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) said the issue of tax justice should be of concern to all a sundry.
According to him “Whether on the government side or the civil society, we are all Nigerians and whatever we do have a way of coming back to us, so the issue of tax justice affects all of us.
“Everything about tax revolves around politics. The political will, the political muscle to do things, and if you don’t have the political powers on your side of the table, you cannot do much.
“In WATAF what we do is purely advisory; we don’t have the power to enforce sanctions because taxation is a sovereign thing. Even as Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) and other tax agencies in West Africa are our members, we only recommend.
“Countries can only take what they want. So sanctions can only come at the level of ECOWAS, because only organisations like ECOWAS have the power to sanction, and that is why we are trying to bring ECOWAS into the big picture.”
Mr. Oladapo also calls for synergies and unity between government agencies while issuing tax incentive so as not to be shortchanged by any organisation
“Tax incentive is a physical tool that has been abused, maybe because we take a lot of things for granted. There is a need for governments in Africa to have a wholesome approach for tax when it comes to incentives.
“Government agencies need to be in unity to enable the tax administrators to do their job smoothly. Because in most cases, some government ministries give out tax concessions to foreign businesses without informing the taxman, and when he goes there to collect tax, he finds out he cannot collect tax there.
“The issue of tax expenditure reporting comes into play. If you are giving away your taxing rights which are your tax revenue; what do you gain because you are losing something? For instance, if you are giving tax incentives to a company because it is coming to develop a certain sector in your economy, have you considered if the value of the so-called development is equal to what you are giving away?
“The worst is that most times, the people giving these incentives do not think through before giving them out. And they don’t even publish the real terms of the incentive agreement so that tax administrators can study them and make inputs that would save the country from losing so much more.”
On advancing the campaign and its impact, he went on to say; “Talking about making more impact in Nigeria, there are organizations you need to be in touch with. There is a well-known organization called the Joint Tax Board. It brings together the FIRS and the 36 tax authorities. In Nigeria, we have 37 tax authorities. So FIRS is just one tax authority and it is not in any way superior to the others. They are all autonomous. So the Joint Tax Board is the best place to take the fight against tax justice to”.
He also called for journalists to avail themselves to be trained on issues of tax justice as important partners so that they can be equipped on how best to report tax issues.
“Also, the journalists are very important in this fight for tax justice because they are a very important tool that is needed to achieve a lot. But the major problem is equipping them with the required knowledge. Because it will be difficult to start writing on what you know nothing about and tax issues are one of such things you cannot just start talking about it if you are not trained or equipped with the necessary information. So educating them on tax issues is very necessary if the fight on tax justice must be won.”
Speaking earlier the leader of the Tax Justice Platform in Nigeria, Mr. Chinedu Ebassy said the group was at the WATAF office to seek collaboration to expand the campaign against Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) and ensure tax justice in the country.
He said that the purpose of the visit was to reach some level of agreement that will further advance the tax justice campaign for a positive result.
“Our collaboration with other organizations, which we also intend to have with your organization is hinged on how to move this campaign forward.
“Part of the challenges we have with labour unions is the belief that we are campaigning for the government to take more money from them. But we believe that your organisation has the kind of resources in terms of human resources that can help to package our programs in a more convincing and help to cascade down the tax justice campaign across all levels and also ensure that tax money works for the people.”
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