The federal government has begun taking steps to cut down the import duties and levies on tractors and motor vehicles.
The Federal Executive Council okayed the bill at its meeting held on Wednesday, November 18, 2020.
She stated that the bill will strengthen Nigeria’s tax laws, in some cases cut taxes especially for small-scale enterprises in addition to the ones reduced last year in the 2019 finance bill.
Ahmed said “In producing this bill, what we were inadvertently doing was amending provisions in 13 different taxes which include the Capital Gains Tax Act, Companies Income Tax Act (CITA), Industrial Development (Income Tax Relief) Act (IIDITRA), Personal Income Tax Act (PITA), Tertiary Education Trust Fund Act, Customs & Excise Tariff (Consolidation) Act, Value Added Tax Act (VATA), Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, the Fiscal Responsibility Act and the Public Procurement Act.
“Some highlights of these provisions include amendments that we have had to make to provide incremental changes to tax laws. These amendments include providing fiscal relief for corporate taxpayers, for instance by reducing the applicable minimum tax rate for two consecutive years. So from 0.5 percent to 0.25 percent.
“Theses reforms will commence and will also be closely followed by the cessation rules for small businesses as well as providing incentives for mass transits by reducing import duties and the levies for large tractors, buses and other motor vehicles. The reason for us is to reduce the cost of transportation which is a major driver of inflation especially food production.
She assured that there will be no raising of taxes.
“We also have proposed measures to create a legal instrument that supports a crisis intervention fund such as, the crisis intervention that we have had to put in place for COVID-19. So we hope that we don’t have other crisis but we need to create such a fund so that it is available and it is legislated,” she said.
“We are also amending the Fiscal Responsibility Act to enhance fiscal efficiencies and also to control the cost revenue ratios of government-owned enterprises so that we will be able to realize more operating surpluses from these enterprises.”
