ABUJA – The House of Representatives on Thursday urged the Federal Government to discontinue the selective enforcement of tax laws.
The appeal was sequel to a motion by Rep. Friday Itulah (EDO-PDP) during the house’s plenary in Abuja.
The lawmakers also urged the government to reconsider the discretionary granting of incentives, waivers as well as other concessions to businessmen.
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They said argued that future rebasing of the nation’s economy should include other vital aspects of the economy such as communication, entertainment, tourism and the Nollywood film industry.
Itulah, while leading debate on the motion, said that the listed sectors were not taken into consideration at the last computation of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“The realistic computation of the GDP will enable the government to achieve its medium-term objective of further narrowing the ratio of federal budget deficit-to-GDP in 2015 from its current ratio of 1:2 in 2014,” he said.
He said that governments across the world, on the average reassessed their GDP computations every five years to reflect changes in output and consumption.
“By rebasing the economy, the tax revenue to the national economy fell from 11.44 per cent (pre-rebasing) to 6.04 per cent (post-rebasing) in 2013, arising from government’s discriminatory and selective enforcement of tax laws, tax concessions and waivers “, he said.
Itulah appealed to the house to urge the Ministry of Finance to direct the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to ensure strict enforcement and compliance with the national policy and procedures in tax collection across board.
The Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, later put the motion to vote and it was unanimously adopted. (NAN)
