Presidential tax committee chair recommends suspension of VAT on diesel

August 9, 2023

Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Tax Policy and Fiscal Reforms, has recommended that the Value Added Tax on Automotive Gas Oil, better known as diesel, be suspended.

According to Oyedele, the VAT suspension will soften the economic impact of President Bola Tinubu’s decision to remove fuel subsidies.

Oyedele stated this on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Wednesday, 9th October 2023.

He said, “What the President wants us to do is that within the first 30 days, there are those low-hanging fruits that people have generally agreed that this is a problem, but nobody has done anything about it.

“Personally, for example, this is not promising that it would be done, but I think that we should suspend VAT on diesel because we removed fuel subsidy on petrol and prices are going up.”

Oyedele went further to say that the nation’s fiscal governance encompasses concerns ranging from the debt ceiling to the deficit-to-GDP ratio (as specified in the Fiscal Responsibility Act), revenue generation reporting, and spending quality.

Oyedele stated that many persons in the tax net, particularly the middle and upper classes, are not in compliance with tax legislation, adding that “some of them are in the tax net with one or two fingers.” In reality, our aim is to abolish many of the taxes that currently make doing business difficult while collecting more.”

He advised that, for the nation’s economy to benefit from revenue generation, the collection of revenue should be assigned primarily to the Federal Inland Revenue Service, while reducing the revenue generation burden on the Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments, and Agencies.

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