President Bola Tinubu has insisted that there is no going back on the tax reform his administration recently introduced.
He said this while answering questions during his maiden presidential media chat broadcast on Monday night, insisting that the economy cannot be revived with the “old broken book.”
“Tax reform is here to stay. We cannot just continue to do what we were doing yesteryears in today’s economy. We cannot retool this economy with the old broken books, and I believe I have that capacity that is why I went into the race,” Tinubu said, adding that “the essence of the tax reform is to eliminate colonial-based assumptions in our tax environment.”
“I am focused on what Nigeria needs and what I must do for Nigeria, it is not just going to be eldorado for everybody, but the new dawn is here, I am convinced, and you should be convinced,” he noted
On the controversy generated by the tax bills, Tinubu said “Every tax situation without outcry is not a tax. You cannot satisfy uniformly the larger community of tax invaders. Look at this tax reform; it is pro-poor…The vulnerable are not to pay taxes.”
On October 3, Tinubu forwarded four tax reform bills to the National Assembly.
The proposed Tax Reform Bills generated a lot of controversies since its introduction at the National Assembly, meeting serious resistant especially from the Northern part of the country.
Following the controversies the bills have generated, the National Economic Council had advised President Bola Tinubu to withdrawal the bills to allow for further consultations, but he said that the bills should go through the necessary legislative processes.
