By Felix Evwihor
Tax collection from taxpayers has been described as a social contract by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
FIRS stated this through the Special Assistant to the Executive Chairman of the agency, Mr Johannes Wojuola, during a training, organised for media practitioners in Delta State.
The training was on Understanding the Rudiments of Taxation in Nigeria, held at the Hotel De Corperfield, Asaba.
According to him, it was described as ‘social contract’ because it enabled the government to generate revenues from Nigerians and in return ploughed back through payment of salaries, building of schools, construction of roads and markets and provision of other social amenities.
He stated that the training was to expose reporters to the need to enlighten Nigerians to pay taxes as when due, instead of focusing all their reports on scandals.
Mr Wojuola stated that FIRS is saddled with the responsibility of assessing, collection and accounting for taxes collected on behalf of the Federal Government.
Wojuola urged participants to encourage Nigerians to pay taxes, adding that money so generated serves as avenue to fund projects at different tiers of government in the country.
In his lecture, Mr Michael Oche, Group Editor of News, Nigerian Pilot Newspaper, explained that there were taxes reserved exclusively for the Federal Government, while others were collected by both the federal and state governments.
According to him, companies Income Tax, Petroleum Profit Tax,Value Added Tax, Tertiary Education Tax, Information Technology Levy, Nigerian Police Trust Fund and National Agency for Service and Engineering Infrastructure Levy are exlusive for the Federal Government.
He added that the federal and state revenue Services share taxes such as the Withholding Tax, Personal Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax and Stamp Duty.
He further stressed that under the leadership of the current chairman, Mohammad Nami, FIRS had employed technologies, such as Taxpro-Max, e-TCC and e-Stamp duty to ease calculations of taxes and payment of such from the convenience of their homes.
He therefore charged media practitioners to go beyond scandals and propaganda and also focus on simplifying tax information to the public, educate citizens on their tax obligation, create awareness on tax laws, raise awareness on the societal benefits of public spending and provide factual information about the use of tax revenues.