President Bola Tinubu has said there is no going back on the tax reforms bills.
Tinubu, who stated this during a media chat in Lagos on Monday, said the tax reforms were necessitated by the need to eliminate colonial-based assumptions in the nation’s tax environment.
The Presidential Media Chat, Tinubu’s first, was aired on the Nigerian Television Authority Monday night.
The tax reforms have sparked controversy across the country, forcing the House of Representatives to suspend indefinitely the debate on the bills earlier fixed for December 3 following mounting pressure from the 19 northern states governors.
But the President stressed that tax reforms was pro-poor and aimed at widening the tax net, noting that it was typical for tax reforms to be accompanied by outcries.
He said, “Tax reform is here to say. We cannot just continue to do what we were doing yesteryears in today’s economy. We cannot retool this economy with the old broken tools. The essence of the tax reform is to eliminate colonial-based assumptions in our tax environment. Every tax situation without outcry is not a tax.
