By Our Correspondent
Significant progress was made towards the passage of the controversial Tax Reform Bills on Monday in the Senate as public hearing will soon be held on them.
Senator Abba Moro, chairman of the Ad-hoc committee set up by the Senate in December last year for required interface with the federal government on grey areas in some of the provisions of the proposed tax reform bills gave this indication to this effect.
Abba Moro, in an interview with journalists said some agreements have been reached after over two hours closed door session his committee had with the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Mr. Zacch Adedeji, Chairman of Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele and Chairman of Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) Dr. Mohammed Bello Shehu.
“We just had a meeting and interface with the officials of government: the Attorney General of the Federation, the Chairman of RMAFC, FIRS Chairman, in the process of evaluating the contending tendencies regarding the tax bills.
“We have agreed amongst ourselves that we must synthesize the whole processes to ensure that at the end of the day we give to Nigerians what Nigerians want and that is a law that serves the purpose of all Nigerians.
“So that is where we are now and hopefully by the time we meet again, we will finalize and we will have some better story to tell you”.
Earlier, the FIRS boss, while fielding questions from journalists, said the perceived grey areas have been cleared and based on positive dispositions shown by members of the committee to the bills, they will surely pass them into law very soon.
He said “all those things you call grey area were discussed, identified and then as you said, the advisory, so the judgment is not to be made; it’s just for us to continue the engagement, the consultation which, based on your observation, has been positive.
“So we are in the right direction and everything is going as planned. There won’t be any other further meeting because all issues were identified, all the issues were clarified and then resolutions were made.
“To the best of my knowledge, everybody there agreed that Nigeria needs the laws as proposed.
“So, what has happened today is that you see the framework of the law, you see the attorney general, you see the lawmakers and all of us, the operators and everything went well”.
The tax reform bills which are (i) The Nigeria Tax Bill (NTB) 2024, (ii) The Nigeria Tax Administration Bill (NTAB) 2024, ( iii) The Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill (NRSEB) 2024 and (iv) The Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Bill (JRBEB) 2024, were passed for second reading in the Senate on 28th November, 2024.
