Ajimobi laments tax evasion by Oyo firms

The Oyo State Governor Abiola Ajimobi, has said the state’s Internally Generated Revenue of around N1.2bn monthly is far lower that what the state should have earned if all the companies operating in the state are sincere about tax remittance.

In an interview with our correspondent in Ibadan, the governor explained that unless the state IGR improved, the state would continue to owe workers salaries and pensions because what it currently earned from Federal Allocation and IGR was not enough to pay its wage bill, currently put at about N5bn.

He said, “Our IGR is abysmally low. Many people are not paying tenement rate, water rate and many other forms of taxes. Some of these things will be reviewed. We have quarries and many companies that are not paying anything. We have seen a situation where companies reduce the salaries of their workers when they apply for tax clearance just to pay peanuts.

“We have the opportunity to increase our IGR and I believe that we can double the figure in six months if we block the leakages.”

While making a projection of N5bn monthly IGR for the state, Ajimobi said the state board of Internal Revenue Service needed to be restructured before its financial potential could be realised.

Ajimobi added, “We are restructuring our board of Internal Revenue Service. We want to separate the IRS from the regular civil service. It will be a separate unit that will be responsible  for generating money. There are many leakages which we want to block.  With the restructuring, our IGR will double in six months. Rather than taxing the poor, we will look for the opportunity to extend our taxes.”

(Punch)