George Okoh In Makurdi
Benue state government has commenced the harmonisation of tax payments in the state.
The Executive Chairman of the Benue Internal Revenue Service, BIRS, Mrs. Mimi Adzape-Orubibi, who made this known at a recent stakeholders meeting with chairmen and secretaries of trade unions in the state said the new policy would effectively eliminate cases of double taxation in the state.
She said: “Under the State Joint Revenue Committee, SJRC, the knotty issue of taxes on Signage and Advertisement have been harmonies to eliminate all forms of double taxation.
“Under the new regime, the taxes would be collected by the BIRS on behalf of the State and Local Government Councils, LGCs. and after which the BIRS would remit 50 percent of whatever was collected to the LGCs.
“That would effectively eliminate the issue of the people having to pay taxes to the state and local governments which could be suffocating to Small and Medium Scale Enterprises SMSEs.”
Adzape-Orubibi informed the union leaders that the Board was embarking on the enumeration of all business in the state for effective planning and for the purpose of availing the businesses soft loans to enable them improve their annual yields in order to pay better taxes.
In his speech, a representative of Ercas Integrated Solutions, the consultants handling the project, Mr. Abdullah El-Amin said when completed, the project would avail traders, owners of SMSEs and artisans wider customer reach.
He said: “We will have everyone on a business directory which would be distributed everywhere and also lunched on the internet.”
