FG partners tax professionals on revenue

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, has said the country is advancing its tax reforms and working on how to bring the digital businesses into the tax net.

Ahmed, who was the special guest honour, spoke at the 25th annual tax conference of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday with the theme, ‘Nigeria of the future: Achieving sustainable development through taxation.

The event was widely attended by tax professionals and leaders in the financial sector.

While answering questions on digital businesses after delivering her speech, she said, “We are working on it. This is one of the challenges we’ve thrown to this conference, to have robust engagement on how Nigeria can harness the potentials to benefit from the digital economy.

“We are using the Finance Act, we have tried to bring in some of the digital economies into the tax net.”

The minister who was represented by the Director, Tax Policy, Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Basheer Abdulkadir, said after conference, the ministry would work on the outcome of the conference and drive its future position with subsequent engagements.

The President, CITN, Mr Adesina Adedayo, recalled that the institute recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, and made it known that the development of the tax professional in Nigeria had gone through the development phase.

He said, “Today, we are about celebrating another landmark achievement, our 25th annual tax conference. We have moved from the baby step of faith, 25 years ago to a stage where we now play host to both indigenous, regional and global tax participants in the tax profession.”

The Chairman of the 25th annual tax conference committee, Mrs Ruth Arokoyo, said the conference was packaged to dialogue on ways to achieve sustainable development for Nigeria through taxation.