Former lawmaker finally expose why Northern governors are condemning Tinubu tax reform bill

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Oghene Egoh, a former member of the House of Representatives, has called on Northern governors to back tax reform bill put forth by President Bola Tinubu.

Speaking to reporters in Lagos on Tuesday, Egoh begged the governors to refrain from outright opposing the tax reform measures and instead ask for additional clarity so that they may better grasp their provisions.

The measures are intended to make it simpler to collect more taxes across the states, he said, adding that some governors oppose them because they do not understand them.

According to him, “ Some governments in the north condemned President Tinubu’s tax bill because they do not understand it.
“Some of the governors said that it will make their states to be poorer.

“The purpose of the tax reform bills is to ease collection of tax, to streamline the various laws in the country and to make it easier to collect more tax across the states.

“The reform will provide enough money to be distributed to all states and also there will be enough money to run capital projects among other benefits.”

He added that the tax reform would guarantee that the federal and state governments would have access to more money.

The former congressman contended that the measure would result in a significant amount of revenue from VAT and other taxes.

He claimed that under the proposed measure, the states would receive a larger percentage of the money while the federal government would receive less.

Egoh said that no state would experience poverty if the bills were approved and correctly put into effect.

“What worries some governors about the reform is that Lagos State will get more money due to revenue collection, but it does not make any difference because Lagos State is not getting money from petroleum derivation.

“Lagos State budget is the highest in the federation because they have Internal Generated Revenue, which is more than revenue generated by 10 states put together.

“Other states should work harder to improve their Internally Generated Revenue, the same principle of tax that relates to various states is what also relates to Lagos State.

“The more economic activity the state has the more VAT it will collect and this will make state governments to put in efforts to collect the VAT, ” Egoh added.

He said that with collection of VAT, over 60 per cent would go to the state while the balance would go into the federated account for division.

“I cannot imagine how a state like Ekiti, which has small population and commercial activity, will be able to collect VAT more than Kano State; also Ebonyi, Cross River that have little oil derivation will get more money than Kano or Kaduna ,” Egoh said.

He said that every state had it own economy indexes, adding that there were lots of agricultural produce coming from the north which VAT could be generated from.

Egoh asked state governments to provide Mr. President an opportunity to alter the narrative in order to facilitate further national development through VAT collecting.

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