Public Complaints Commission decries multiple taxations on businesses, holds zonal workshop in Lagos

The Public Complaints Commission, on Thursday, held a Southwest zonal town hall workshop on multiple taxation reports in Lagos.

The event which was held at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Ikeja, the Lagos State capital was tagged “Systemic and Proactive Investigation into Multiple Taxation of Business in Southwest, Lagos”.

Speaking at the event, the Chief Commissioner of the Public Complaints Commission, Hon Abimbola Ayo-Yusuf on the choice of Lagos for the Southwest edition of the workshop, where he confirmed that a lot of reports on multiple taxations, extortion and fines on business owners are from Lagos.

He assured members of the public that a complaints station will be situated in all the 774 local governments in the country.

He said: “I called this town hall meeting on multiple taxations because of a lot of complaints on this multiple taxations we receive. And this is a way we can use to help small businesses to grow because if the taxes are too much, I wonder how the businesses will grow.

“We also intend to open offices in all the local governments in Nigeria, where people can actually come in and complain and we can take it up with necessary authorities.”

He also noted that the communique of the workshop will be transmitted to the legislative and executive arms of government for implementation.

The Lagos State Federal Commissioner of the Public Complaints Commission, Hon Afeez Odunewu, spoke on the efforts taken in Lagos to put in check the reports of multiple taxations of businesses by visiting some local governments.

“The town hall meeting is called in order to bring sanity into the system.  I’m trying to tour all the local governments in Lagos State. I’ve been to three to four local governments to make sure we give back justice on taxation and sanity to the people and business owners grassroots,” he said.

The Deputy Director of Investigation, Lagos State office, Public Complaints Commission, Mr Musa Omosun, in his words, emphasised that “20 per cent of the complaints we receive in Lagos office has to do with issues related to double taxation. What we’ve been told is that it is not all are really double taxations, but fines and levies.”

One of the participants, Mr Okere Eugene, who decried the issue of multiple taxations in Lagos, especially in the transportation sector, also appealed to the Federal Government to implement the recommendations of the committee set up by the office of the vice president on the ease of doing business as he believes would help channel people’s complaints to the appropriate agency and then address multiple taxations on businesses.

The event had in attendance the representatives of the agency across the country, directors and staff of the Lagos office, business owners and representatives of the Lagos State tax workers.

ALSO READ FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE 

• Shun Strike As Tool For Pressing Home Demands, Buhari Charges ASUU

• Bankers And ‘Japa’ Syndrome

• Tinubu, Atiku, Obi to interact with private school owners on November 30

• When your name determines your life

• FA bans Ronaldo over phone incident

• EDITORIAL: The drunk killer-soldier in Lagos army barracks