Reps Move to Establish National Tax Crimes Commission to Address Revenue Leakages

The House of Representatives has passed a bill for second reading, seeking to establish a National Tax Crimes and Oversight Commission to address revenue leakages in the payment of taxes in the country.

The bill, sponsored by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu and eight other lawmakers, aims to tackle irregularities in tax assessment, reporting, and remittances while protecting the rights of taxpayers.

The proposed commission will also prevent and combat tax-related crimes and plug all leakages in the tax administration system.

According to the sponsor, Felix Uche Nweke, the amount of revenue available to any government determines the extent to which it can provide public goods and services and ensure national growth and development.

Leakages occur when unscrupulous staff and agents of tax authorities collude with citizens to under-assess the tax payer, resulting in underpayment.

They also happen in the form of tax evasion, non-remittances of collected taxes, and overassessment or multiple taxation, which can stifle the business environment and hamper the growth of small businesses.

To effectively combat international tax evasion and other transnational organized crimes and abuses of the nation’s public finance system, there is a need to establish an independent Tax Crimes and Oversight Commission, which will have the capacity to investigate, audit, prevent, and combat tax-related crimes.

This will contribute to national security through the prevention of tax-related crimes, the prevention of illicit financial flow derived from tax evasion, international tax schemes, and cybercrime.

The commission will not function as a law court, duplicate the functions of the Tax Appeal Tribunals, or be saddled with any form of quasi-judicial functions.

It will focus on the oversight of the tax administration system, ensuring that the tax authorities discharge their duties within the ambit of the laws, protecting, promoting, and guaranteeing taxpayer’s rights, prosecuting corrupt and fraudulent tax officials, ensuring complete remittances of all public revenues, and increasing public revenue not through introduction or increment of taxes but through friendly and appropriate taxation, among other things.

Similar independent tax auditing and investigating organizations exist in other countries, such as the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) of the United States and the Inspector General of Taxation and Ombudsman (IGT/O) of Australia.

The establishment of this commission in Nigeria will put in place an effective system that can address taxpayers’ grievances and complaints promptly and without hassles, encouraging and raising people’s willingness to pay their taxes.