What is really wrong with Nigeria? People, they have another bill to tax companies. Yes, the new one is called a National Youth Service Corps Trust Fund:
““A Bill for an Act to Establish National Youth Service Corps Trust Fund (NYSCTF) for the purpose of providing a Sustainable Source of Funds for the National Youth Service Corps, Skill Acquisition, Training and Empowerment of Corps Members, Training and Retraining of the Personnel of the National Youth Service Corps, Development of Camps and NYSC formations and Facilities therein; and for Related Matters.
Lauding the passage, a group, the Centre for Social Justice, Equity and Transparency expressed gratitude to the House of Representatives, for passing the bill into law.
At a press briefing in National Assembly in Abuja, Comrade Isaac Ikpa, the Convener of the group, urged the Nigerian Senate to tow the line of their counterparts, by concurring to the Bill, while calling on President Muhammad Buhari, to speedily assent to the Bill, when sent by the National Assembly.””
This is not fair in any way to companies which will pay these taxes. Companies are already over-taxed with ITF, Education Tax, and an amalgam of many which run from funding information technology to law enforcement. As that is happening, banks are helping the government to deduct all kinds of fees from company accounts.
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I sent a bank Executive Director my company US bank statement and the statement from his bank. In the US one, provided I can keep a minimum of $2,500 balance per month (daily average), there will be ZERO fee. But in Nigeria, I have no mechanism to avoid bank and government fees.
I have postulated here that more taxes will not fix our educational system. Rather, we need to find creative ways to make it possible for creators of jobs to see the need to build pipelines of talent in the nation..
The business climate needs to be improved upon and these mindless and unproductive taxes must be curtailed. Sure, I am not against NYSC but I do not think funding it should become another burden to companies after ITF, education tax, VAT, etc which companies pay. And after paying for those things, you do not have light, water, and security. Somebody may ask: why are companies paying those taxes?
We need a new redesign for the future of Nigeria. Companies are not unlimitedly able to fund everything in the nation after paying their statutory corporate taxes. In this age of AfCFTA (the free trade agreement in Africa), we are scoring many own-goals to depress Nigeria’s continental competitiveness.
Comment on LinkedIn Feed
Comment: is is literally the opposite of your proposal. These people are depraved.
My Response: Honestly. This is happening when some countries are deepening their competitiveness through tax/fees efficiencies. This is one of the reasons why I am in support of fiscal federalism where states keep what they earn and pay “taxes” to the federal government. With all these fees, even if a state governor removes all local taxes, the SMEs may not even notice that gesture, because there are still many taxes to pay to government (who cares if it is state or federal)
As Your Federal Minister, I Will Fix Nigeria’s Educational System
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When you have a thievery blood running in your body, you are always looking for something to steal, so whether by looting, fraud or using legislation to steal, they all have common denominator: thieving.
We couldn’t reform education sector so that the graduates can be relevant upon graduation, and we magically think that by providing a stop gap training within one year of service – we will achieve better results than what we couldn’t do in 4-5 years we keep the youths in school? Our greatest challenge remains poor thinking, corruption is secondary.
We always think that the president is the problem, but somewhat forget that there are 469 creatures that swing between ineptitude and dereliction, and we pay them a lot of money for being irresponsible.
Whoever believes that we have quality breeds of humans here at scale needs to think again, because from every side you look, you see creatures who obviously don’t know why they exist, let alone providing leadership.
They will soon create Trust Fund for National Assembly, since we are incapable generating legitimate revenues, so we have to keep stealing from companies, until nothing is left to steal.
Humans make nations great, but our breeds are not good enough to manage fowls.