Work Resumes On Tax Reform Bills As AGF Meets With Senate Panel

Legislative work on the controversial Tax Reform Bills may resume anytime soon as the Attorney General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi on Monday met with the Senate ad hoc committee on the way forward.

The two chambers of the National Assembly had suspended work on the bills last December following the strong opposition to some aspects of the bills.

The chairman of the Senate ad hoc committee, Senator Abba Moro dropped the hint after a meeting with Fagbemi.

The Federal Government team led by Fagbemi was tasked with sorting out some grey areas in the bills, specifically the aspect that has to do with the sharing of VAT revenues among the states.

Moro, who spoke with journalists at the National Assembly after a meeting with the Fagbemi-led team, said the coast was clear for further legislative action on the bills.

He said, “We just had a meeting and interface with the officials of government, the Attorney General of the Federation, the Chairman of RMAFC, the FIRS Chairman, and in the process of evaluating the contending tendencies regarding the tax bills.

“We have agreed amongst ourselves that we must synthesise 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 finalise and we will have some better story to tell you.”

The chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zacch Adedeji, who was part of the meeting, said the areas of disagreement had been resolved.

He said, “All those things you call grey areas were discussed and identified. So it’s just for us to continue the engagements and consultations.

“So we are in the right direction and everything is going as planned. There won’t be any further meetings 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.”

Also at the meeting were the chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Mr Taiwo Oyedele and his counterpart from the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Dr Mohammed Bello Shehu.

Work Resumes On Tax Reform Bills As AGF Meets With Senate Panel is first published on The Whistler Newspaper