Against outcries of over-taxation in Enugu State, the Chairman of the state Internal Revenue Service, Mr Emmanuel Nnamani, has clarified that there is no imposition of taxes on anyone.
Nnamani rather said the state government was simply implementing the tax regime within its jurisdiction.
The chairman told newsmen during an interview that, “When people say they are over-taxed, the question is: when do they know the difference between over-taxing and non-taxing?
“Over the years, Enugu people have not been paying taxes except the working class. For those who have their own businesses, they pay nothing to the government; that doesn’t mean that they don’t pay money.
“They pay money but they pay this money to non-state actors who collect the money and put it into their personal pockets.
“Now this government is taking over those collections and ensuring that they enter the government purse and that the government utilises the fund for the generality of the citizens’ benefits.
“You can see that what the governor is doing is to show Enugu people that when there is revenue, there is development and that is actually what we are trying to sensitise our people that it is only when we have sustainable revenue that we can guarantee our sustainable development.
“We have not increased taxes. The tax is not overbearing, but we are only telling our people that we have an obligation which is inherent.
“We have to exercise this and we meet this obligation by paying your taxes no matter how little it is.”
On whether private firms are being used to collect taxes by the state government, Nnamani said, “We no longer allow the private sector to collect revenue for us.
“We have technology. We collect this revenue ourselves but where we think we don’t have enough human resources in terms of numbers, we recruit agents who come in and we pay them commissions based on the volume they have collected. That is what we have done in the past one year.
“You will still see some papers flying around inside the town. These papers are by people who feel they have been stampeded in collecting revenue and putting inside their pockets and once in a while, they fly these papers.
“They collect from one or two persons and before we could catch them, they must have collected money from people, unsuspecting public. It is expected and we will continue to track them.”