The tax system has existed for a long time and it’s the government’s means of getting funds to provide amenities, keeping the country running smoothly. With citizens paying tax, countries have experienced development in different fields and it’s a fantastic thing when people see what they are paying for.
Of course, you will be encouraged to keep paying your tax seeing great development in your country but in a situation where taxpayers aren’t seeing any development despite paying their taxes, it’s going to be huge problem like that which Nigeria is going through at the moment.
Speaking of infrastructure, security, sports and every other thing happening in the country, Nigeria is struggling and you begin to wonder what exactly the taxes are being used for coupled with the fact that our government keep incurring loans from other countries all in the name of building infrastructures and keeping the nation stable.
A lot of Nigerians get pissed at the mention of TAX because we can’t exactly pin where all these funds are going to. There are developments in the country but they don’t match the revenue generated from taxes and it doesn’t surprise why Nigerians aren’t eager to pay taxes but somehow, the government keeps getting this money from us in different ways.
It makes me laugh when some Nigerians think they aren’t paying taxes and do not care about embezzlement or the mismanagement of the country’s wealth. The fact remains that we are all directly or indirectly paying taxes to the government and one particular one we can’t escape is the Value Added Tax (VAT), it’s automatically added to our purchases and because it’s always small, a lot of us don’t pay much attention to it.
As small as it is, the government generates millions of naira everyday from VAT and looking at the whole situation of the country, you would ask where these taxes gotten from VAT, Oil, Imports, Transportation and others vanishing into. I won’t be the first and last Nigerian to complain about this terrible tax system so I prefer to just suggest ideas that might reshape the look of the system.
The two issues with the nation’s wealth are lack of transparency and accountability.
I can confidently say that government aren’t getting all the taxes paid by the citizens meaning the tax officials are taking advantage of the poor system while the funds getting up there aren’t even used properly. Funds are being moved around by the government as they wish since nobody will ask questions.
Let’s imagine where the citizens know what the country’s revenue is and we can tell what these funds are used for, it would be difficult for any form of stealing or revenue mismanagement.
Due to the corruption in the country, asking for transparency and accountability would be almost impossible but it is very possible if the government wants to be true for once. It would even be an opportunity for the government to boost the country’s revenue because Nigerians will definitely be inspired to pay more taxes when they see their money working.
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