Starting August 1st, the Rivers State Government will roll out rates and modalities for the remittance of emergent informal sector taxes aimed at artisans, trade and professionals across the state.
The rates which are in seven categories were adopted by the Rivers Internal Revenue Service, RIRS, from recommendations of an Informal Sector Tax Stakeholders Committee made of representatives of the prospective taxpayers.
Chairman of the Rivers State chapter of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, Uba Obasi, who heads the committee said at the presentation of their recommendations in Port Harcourt on Tuesday that they aggregated inputs from various consultative meetings stakeholders held with RIRS to come up with the rates and processes.
According to the Executive Chairman, RIRS, Adoage Norteh, “We will publish the categories and rates to be paid, so people would know. We will not flood the space with consultants, agents, by whatever name they come because is if we do, we let the system loose for touts to operate.
“This is presumptive tax as we are not able to determine the income of each person in the informal sector, so rates have been determined to look at the structures, sizes of trade groups and all that.
“It is assuring that the committee’s recommendations adequately represented the true view of the taxpayers with everyone carried along. That is what we, RIRS, wanted. Peterside commends Senate on screening(Opens in a new browser tab)
“We can’t have a perfect system. As we go on we can make adjustments where the need arises and inform the taxpayers accordingly, but we hope as of now we have arrived at a seamless process that can help all of us eliminate touting.”
Adoage speaking further on the modalities for collection of the informal sector tax, said, “Our process is demand notice. No cash payments. If any taxman or anybody come to you demanding cash, please contact law enforcement agency to arrest that person”
“We don’t want the tax atmosphere to be chaotic. We want to be able to differentiate a tax administrator from a tout, a tax evader from a complier. We want a system that works and acceptable to all, otherwise, we could have just fixed rates and go out”.
Port Harcourt Chamber of Commerce, Industry Mines and Agriculture, represented by Clement Akanibor on the stakeholders’ committee noted that the RIRS has by its wide consultation, taken care of the challenges of double taxation and touting in this tax type.
Other trades and artisan groups represented in the Committee include Pillar of Associations, National Association of Small Scale Industries and Rivers Drivers Cooperative Union.
