Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zacch Adedeji, has declared that the tax all banks in the country pay altogether pales into insignificance if compare to that of cement companies.
Banks in Nigeria including Microfinance are in excess of 60 while cement producing companies are few.
In an interview Adedeji granted Punchng, the FIRS boss said in spite of the fact that the number of Nigerian banks outstrip that of cement manufacturers by mile, the tax revenue from the latter is more than all the banks combined.
He made this known while making a case for tax incentives saying, “Tax incentives on their own are not bad. Everywhere in the world, you have targeted incentives that governments do. For instance, if you look at the way we localised cement production in Nigeria, they were given a tax holiday for 10 years.
“The government allowed cement companies to bring in equipment. But today, if you look at the tax revenue collected from cement manufacturers, it is more than all the taxes collected from all the banks in Nigeria. These cement manufacturers were given incentives at a point. But what we are saying now is that all incentives must be measured and reviewed to know if it is the right thing to do or not. So, there is nothing bad in incentive and it is a part of the fiscal policy to stimulate the economy.”
