The Federal Government Chairman has given the South-East states a total of N23.87billion as tax rebates.

This revelation was made by the Chairman of the Joint Tax Board, Mr. Babatunde Fowler, on Thursday during the South-East geopolitical zone regional ceremony for the New National Registration System held at the Women Development Centre, Awka.

Fowler noted that a major feature of the new tax regime was that it possessed the capability to integrate with relevant agencies by leveraging on already captured data.

He said: “The South-East states have already received N23.87 billion from the Federal Government. The gesture will encourage the state governments to reciprocate and promptly remit all withholding taxes and VAT due to the Federation Account.

“We recognise the huge entrepreneurial and commercial potential of Anambra State taking into consideration that the Onitsha main market is touted as the biggest market in West Africa, and we are well aware of the opportunities that this can have in shoring up the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) potential and even more.

“A look at the IGR performance of the South-East geopolitical zone also shows encouraging growth trends as the cumulative collection of N77.31 billion for the year 2018 was a 16.66per cent improvement on the N66.27 billion collected in 2017.

“The year 2019 is looking quite positive as well. Already the sum of N42.98 billion has already been reported for the half-year period. This represents an 18.1 per cent growth over the N36.4 billion recorded for the half-year period of 2018.

“This new reality drives the desire by the JTB to ensure that the identification of individuals and corporate bodies for tax purposes in Nigeria is achievable.”

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