Business

FIRS seeks law to introduce road tax

Published

3 years ago

August 19, 2021 10:09 am

BodexNG

Mohammed Nami, executive chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), says a proposal has been sent to the federal government for a law on road tax.

Nami said this yesterday at an interactive session organised by the house of representatives committee on finance on the 2022-2024 medium term expenditure framework/fiscal strategy paper (MTEF/FSP) for ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in Abuja.

This is coming days after the federal government approved a new policy for tollgates across the country.

At the public hearing on Wednesday, Afolabi Olalekan, a member of the committee from Osun state, asked Nami to explain what FIRS has put in place to tackle tax evasion by people in the informal sector.

“What is your agency doing to extend your tax drive to the informal sector. Because I believe the informal sector is a veritable area where we can get a lot of money, especially this period that the county is relying on borrowing to finance budget deficit,” he asked.

Responding, Nami said FIRS is working on several measures to ensure that the informal sector pay taxes to the federal government.

He said one of the measures include the introduction of road tax.

Nami said when FIRS and the federal government finalises the framework on road tax, the proposed legislation would be sent to the national assembly.

“What we have done on the informal sector at a time was try to propose what we call a presumptive tax to the national assembly, but in the course of doing that we face a bit of challenge and we did not submit the proposal yet, simply because we discover that there is an act of the national assembly that exempted businesses with a turnover of about N1 to N25 million,” he said.

“So if you already have that, you can find it difficult to say come and pay presumptive tax. Presumptive tax is a tax that we just give you form to say based on your own estimate, how much have you generated this year and you say 12 million, then we say pay maybe six percent of that 12 million and you go because you are not an organised sector.

“But there is a law which has exempted every business with a turnover of N1 and N25 million so you find it difficult to implement such a thing.

“The second thing we are doing of which we have already done is to create a department called intelligence, strategic data-mining and analysis department; which the only thing these young boys and girls do on a daily basis is just to gather intelligence on companies and particularly these informal sector, analyse them and then escalate those gap that they identify for the purpose of tax assessment and tax collection.

“Number three thing we are thinking of, and we will surely come back to the national assembly on that, is to introduce road taxes.

Road tax is necessary because all over the world there is no way we would see people that will use roads for free.

“As is it today, even if you are able to give an entire N10 trillion to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it will not be able to fix the roads in Nigeria, just the roads in Nigeria alone.

“So what we have decided to do is to propose the introduction of road taxes to the federal government through our special tax operations department so that at least 50 trucks that would be plying these roads for free at any given point in time, comes across a toll gate or probably somewhere that we are going to use electronic device to collect it without necessarily erecting toll gate.

“We are aware that the owners of these trucks, they don’t pay anything to the government, they don’t get the FIRS certificate.

So up to 15 or 20 trucks that will ply the road that is built with personal income tax that I pay and you pay and then they don’t pay taxes. That is what we want to identify.”

Business

Naira depreciates to N1,700/$ at parallel market — lowest in seven months

Published

19 hours ago

September 28, 2024 10:34 am

BodexNG

The naira depreciated to N1,700 per dollar at the parallel section of the foreign exchange (FX) market on Friday.

At the end of trading hours, the naira depreciated by 1.49 percent compared to the N1,675/$ traded on Thursday.

The N1,700 per dollar is the lowest the naira has depreciated since February 19, when the naira recorded a low of N1,730/$.

Currency traders, also known as street traders, in Lagos, quoted the buying rate of the local currency at N1,680/$ and the selling rate at N1,700/$ — leaving a profit margin of N20.

WEEK-LONG FLUCTUATIONS

At the parallel market on Monday, the naira depreciated to N1,665/$ from N1,663 on September 20.

Maintaining the depreciation streak, the local currency fell further to N1,670 and N1,680 on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

However, the naira rebounded to N1,675 on Thursday.

At the official FX market, the local currency depreciated to N1,562.66 on Monday — from N1,541.52 on September 20.

Subsequently, the naira further depreciated to N1,658.48 on Tuesday and N1,667.72 on Wednesday, before appreciating to N1,576.1 on Thursday.

On January 29, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) said it had begun implementing a comprehensive plan to improve liquidity in the Nigerian FX markets in the short, medium, and long term.

The apex bank said the FX reforms were designed to streamline and harmonise multiple exchange rates, promote transparency, and lessen the likelihood of arbitrage opportunities.

On September 25, Olayemi Cardoso, governor of CBN, said the multiple interest rate hikes have restored confidence in the naira.

Business

CBN extends suspension of processing fees on deposits to March 2025

Published

21 hours ago

September 28, 2024 8:41 am

BodexNG

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has extended the suspension of processing fees on cash deposits for six months.

The development comes six days before the suspension date initially fixed, expires.

On May 1, banks resumed the collection of processing fees on cash deposits.

Six days later, CBN suspended charges on the deposits until September 30.

However, in a circular directed to all banks, other financial institutions and non-financial institutions, dated September 24, 2024, and signed by Adetona Adedeji, CBN’s director of banking supervision, the apex bank extended the date to March 31, 2025.

“Further to our letter dated May 6, 2024, referenced BSD/DIR/PUB/LAB/016/023, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) hereby extends the suspension of processing charges on cash deposits above N500,000 for individuals and N3,000,000 for corporates,” the apex bank said.

“The previous suspension, set to expire on September 30, 2024, has now been extended until March 31, 2025.

“This suspension pertains to the 2% and 3% fees outlined in the ‘Guide to Charges by Banks, Other Financial Institutions and Non-Bank Financial Institutions, issued on December 20, 2019.”

CBN asked all financial institutions to continue accepting cash deposits from the public without any charges during the period.

Business

Meta unveils John Cena, others as new AI voice clones

Published

2 days ago

September 27, 2024 9:37 am

BodexNG

Meta, the giant tech company, announced on Wednesday the integration of celebrity voices into its artificial intelligence chatbot, Meta AI, in an effort to compete with products like ChatGPT.

At the Meta Connect 2024 developer conference in Menlo Park, founder Mark Zuckerberg revealed that users of Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Facebook can now engage in real-time conversations using a variety of voices, including those of celebrities like Awkwafina, Dame Judi Dench, John Cena, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kristen Bell.

While this new voice feature aims to enhance user interaction, it differs from OpenAI’s Advanced Voice Mode for ChatGPT, which is celebrated for its expressive and emotive tones. In contrast, Meta’s offering resembles Google’s Gemini Live, which transcribes speech and reads responses aloud with synthetic voices.

Bodex F. Hungbo, SPMIIM is a multiple award-winning Nigerian Digital Media Practitioner, Digital Strategist, PR consultant, Brand and Event Expert, Tv Presenter, Tier-A Blogger/Influencer, and a top cobbler in Nigeria.

She has widespread experiences across different professions and skills, which includes experiences in; Marketing, Media, Broadcasting, Brand and Event Management, Administration and Management with prior stints at MTN, NAPIMS-NNPC, GLOBAL FLEET OIL AND GAS, LTV, Silverbird and a host of others