The federal government plans to begin in July the implementation of its tax reforms contained in the four bills now awaiting consideration by the National Assembly, Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, said in Lagos yesterday.

The committee is the brains behind the tax reforms which received the backing of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) only last week after months of high wire negotiation and consultations.

The Senate yesterday described the NGF endorsement of the bills as a great boost towards the passage of the bills, but said this would not preclude it from receiving more input on the legislation from the public.

The Senate Is due to resume sitting on January 28 after a short break.

Oyedele, speaking at an event, The Platform, in Lagos, said the bills would be passed not later than March while further preparations for the reforms implementation would be done in the second quarter.

?We expect the tax reforms to be approved, particularly the tax reform bills in 2025,? he said.

?Our expectation is before the end of Q1 and therefore we can give notice to taxpayers to prepare themselves with capacity and begin to implement around 1st of July.?

He described the reforms as transformational.

Continuing, he said: ?They keep me excited.

?The reason why I have the energy to keep going is because of the possibilities I see in those reforms, which haven?t been done since independence.

?Structurally, those reforms will help Nigeria. They will reduce the pressure even on the policy authorities.?

He said his committee has no objection to the amendment made to the Value-Added Tax (VAT) sharing formula component of the bills by the Governors? Forum.

The governors proposed 50 per cent based on equality, 30 per cent on derivation and 20 per cent based on population as against the 20 per cent on equality, 60 per cent based on derivation, and 20 per cent on population suggested by the Tax Reform Committee.

But Oyedele conceded yesterday that reforms anywhere in the world are not only about what is technically correct but also about political considerations.

?You also need to consider other things, including political considerations, and so once the governors proposed their formula for sharing the VAT revenue we have no objections to that, because, at the end of the day, if you need to move one kilometre, you don?t have to move all of that at once; you can?t even jump one kilometre at once.

?Maybe sometimes you need to just move gradually. You know, you take a breather. You reflect, have more data, and then you move again.?

He said the proposed VAT-sharing formula would affect all sectors of the economy particularly agriculture and manufacturing as well as industries.

?So I?ll say even if you?re not going to look at everything in that bill, go and find that section where we have those sectors.

?It?s a pointer to you about where the government wants to redirect the incentive regime.?

Addressing the economic challenges in the country, Oyedele said the economic reforms of the Tinubu administration were beginning to yield good results.

He said the worst was over as far as the economy challenges were concerned.

His words: ?Removing subsidies is the best decision we made as a country. And we can now say that for once, subsidy is gone.

?We were living on window-dressed realities. If you look back to about two years ago, naira exchange rate was N450 depending on who you asked. But was our exchange rate really N450?

?If you wanted to buy petrol, it was under N200 per litre. But was it really under N200 per litre?

?There wasn?t band A at the time.

?A country can afford to sell petrol at N200 per litre if you can afford it. But there is everything wrong if you cannot afford it.

?I am a parent and will like to send my kids to school. If I can afford a school of N200 million per term, no problem. But if I cannot, they will do just first term and won?t be able to continue their education.

?Maybe they should go to a school of N200, 000 per term.

?So, Nigeria was doing worse than it ought to, and then we had this sense of ?our economy was not doing great?. We thought that our economy was the largest in Africa.

?Our GDP was around $450 million. We thought our per capita income was about $2, 000 per person but it was not up to that.

?Nigeria used all its revenue to service debts. We were not paying debts back. We were just servicing it. In order words, everything we did, from paying salaries to fighting Boko Haram, we were just borrowing.

?When Nigeria borrowed, we borrowed high digits and those were the funds we were using to run the economy and service debts.

?If anybody was not losing his sleep with just that alone, then he must be from another planet. The outcome of what was happening was predictable. It was a Sri Lanka happening to us. It was a Venezuela.

?In those countries you would hold money and you wouldn?t be able to get fuel to buy. In Sri Lanka that you couldn?t drive your car every day of the week because there was no fuel.

?Our GDP growth rate was very low. Over the past 10 years, less than 10 per cent. If you do it in real-time, it is negative.

?Ways and Means was high. We were printing money to spend. We couldn?t borrow abroad because they said lending to us was risky. We didn?t have cash flow. And the capacity to borrow locally was low. So we were printing money to spend, and that is even dangerous.

?We printed close to N40 trillion naira plus interest. And we were surprised there was inflation. Nigerians don?t realise that the invisible controls the visible. And that is because the removal of subsidies is not seen physically. It is not something you can touch.

?Even some airlines stopped flying to Nigeria because of the backlog of FX debt to foreign airlines.

?There is nothing wrong with Nigeria. But maybe there is something wrong with the people ruling Nigeria.

?In America, people get killed every day by gunmen. But have you ever heard Americans say ?may America never happen to you??

?Let?s stop saying ?May Nigeria never happen to you?. Maybe we can turn it into ?May Nigeria work for me?.

?Going by available data, I personally believe that the worst is behind us.?

Govs? endorsement of tax reform bills a great boost, says Senate spokesman

Speaking yesterday on the fate of the bills in the National Assembly now that the governors have endorsed them, Chairman, Senate Committees on Media and Public Affairs, Adeyemi Adaramodu, said it was an impetus for the Senate to proceed with the work it has started on the legislation.

?We are continuing with our processes now. We have already committed it to the committee on Finance after it scaled through the second reading,? Adaramodu told The Nation on the phone.

?So, it is already there and then we allowed the consultations to be on too. So the Governors Forum?s endorsement is a boost for the consultation process of the Federal Government.?

He said the Committee on Finance has a deadline to report back to the Senate after holding public hearings on the bills.

He said: ?But due to the exigency of the Appropriation Bill which we have to make sure that we pass before the end of this month, that?s why it seems as if work is very slow on it.

?The Governors Forum?s endorsement of the reform bills, it is a very great boost because they are a critical sector that the federal government must have their own buy into it too and then it?s in the spirit of the consultation which everybody has been asking for in Nigeria concerning the tax reform bills.

?So we are continuing with our processes, and as soon as possible, the public hearing will still hold and then all other stakeholders will still be called; those ones that are interested, those ones who want to appear in person, those ones who want to submit memoranda, we are still going to consider that and then put them together to inform our collation of all the shades of opinions and contributions and then suggestions on the tax reform bills.

Responding to a question on whether the governors? endorsement has removed obstacles to the passage of the bills, Adaramodu said: ?The National Assembly is not looking at obstacles. We are looking at executive bills that were given to us, and if we are looking at obstacles, we will not allow them to pass through the first reading and second reading.

?We are not looking at obstacles in that wise and then the governors were no obstacles.

?They were talking about the need to consult wider and I am very sure that the drafters of the bills that were passed to us had more engagements with the Governors? Forum, and they (governors) have now come out after maybe looking at everything and then they have endorsed it.

?So, the National Assembly, ours is to make laws. Ours is to look at the bills, either private bills or executive bills, and then do the needful, allowing the bills to pass through the crucible of legislative procedures.

?So, that is where we are. That is what we are going to do. But the endorsement of the bills by the Governors? Forum is a great boost, as I said, because the governors are a very critical sector in our body polity, economically, socially and politically, because even when the tax bills become laws, then definitely the governors are the ones that are going to execute at the sub national.

?So their coming into it makes it very, very easy and almost hitch-free because we will still go into the public hearing and then we are going to engage other stakeholders who are interested, who want to come over to the National Assembly in order to present papers, present opinions and present their stand too.?

On whether the processes towards the passage of the Bills would be fast-tracked after the passage of the 2025 budget by the National Assembly, he said: ?Exactly.?

?Then we expect that the Committee on Finance would have been doing a lot on it and we are very convinced that immediately after the passage of the budget when we resume after January 28, then the public hearing will still come up.

?But the Nigeria Governors? Forums endorsement of the Bills is a great elixir that will assist the smooth passage of the Bills into law. But despite that, we will still expect other stakeholders to file in their own contributions.? (The Nation)

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