The Nigerian Customs Services Department raised concerns that if the National Assembly currently passes a previous tax reform bill, it may no longer be able to meet some of its constitutional obligations.
Customs Services states that new agencies can take over their functions under certain provisions in the government’s proposed bill President Tinubu Ball.
NCS’s chief controller, Adewale Andrale, Observations and concerns were raised at a public hearing on the House Tax Reform Act on Wednesday.
Naija News Understand that if the bill is considered to be for the moment, the NCS will lose its revenue collection power, deducting it to the Nigerian Income Service (NRS) that has not been created yet.
Customs boss says potential threatens NCS.
Adeniyi said at the hearing that they were concerned that the new law was seeking to cover all previous laws to address the economic issues.
He said “There is a matter of jurisdiction over the Joint Income Act under Sections 23 and 29 and Section 41A of the Act.
“In the Nigerian Taxation Agency Establishment Act, Article 16 will fully legislate Nigerian custom services if you forgive me.
“In Section 4, there is another comprehensive provision. This special provision gives NRS oversight functions to all taxes and taxes.
“We are concerned that this new law is seeking to cover all previous laws to address economic issues.”
He further expressed concern about the interchangeability of the terms “tax” and “responsibility” in the proposed law and called for ambiguity to be resolved, as both words have different functions in practice.
“Replace the term ‘tax’, replacing the term ‘tax’ in many areas of the bill seems to ignore the differences and goals that these two tools can do in the economy.
“Our understanding is that taxes are used to generate income for the government and also to distribute wealth. However, the responsibilities go beyond that.
“Responsibility is more of a fiscal policy tool, a tool for the government to encourage industrialization, prevent environmental pollution and propose a certain public health order,” he said.
In short, Adeniyi proposed that the bill was reassessed to avoid extermination of customs services and that several existing laws would not be repealed in the purpose of enacting another law.
“So we have made some suggestions and the main recommendations we have made is that we should encourage cooperation and integrated operations between customs and tax authorities, rather than abolishing customs or not repealing the law because we want to do another law, He submitted.
