By
Ogungbayi Ezekiel
(Enter the next gen!! The new Nigerian and responsibilities to the state- new tax reform law as a case study)
When I was a kid in the village over six decades ago, I started hearing from my dad and other elders about “owo ori” but I never understood what it was about. Later on in life since I started handling money in the form of salary or as an employer I chose the path of responsibility.
As a young doctor earning a salary, my employers ensured responsibility. As a young private practitioner in Imo State, I followed the path of honor.
It would have been tragically absurd if a non-indigene would establish a business in another man’s land and engage in tax evasion.
I have my name, my profession, my tribe to protect and I believed I owed it a duty to be responsible. I have been a responsible tax payer since the onset of my business life.
Did the scripture not ask that we give unto Caesar what belongs to him?
When I relocated to Lagos State, I came with my tax receipts of Imo State which the tax authorities of Lagos manipulated and sidelined just to give me an undeserved jumbo assessment irrespective of the fact that I had just started a business without a client (patient base). I just chose to be a good citizen and didn’t want to involve myself in any illegality.
That was even at a stage when many of the established colleagues were still dodging and using connections and corrupt tactics to evade tax payment. The name of my father Samson Faleti Ogungbayi should not be tarnished even in death.
Education itself has enlightened me enough to know that it is from taxation that the government develops infrastructures. It pained me much when I came back to Lagos and had to live in a community devoid of the most basic amenities where you have to provide everything including electricity poles and cables, transformers, roads, drainages while paying tax.
When eventually Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola as Governor constructed the only road that opened Isheri Oshun to civilization, it strengthened my resolve to be more diligent with tax payment. Of course, Mr. Raji Fashola and I drank from the same jug as we were nurtured from the same source- Birch Freeman High School where you are “Trained for duty and for thee”.
Leaders like that who judiciously manage taxpayer money are rare and deserve the support of all citizens poor or rich. Many who were poor in Isheri Oshun by virtue of poor infrastructure eventually became rich because of government policy.
Fast forward to this generation of employees and professionals including our junior colleagues- doctors who want to earn fantastic salaries but will not want to hear anything about tax.
This is a new paradigm shift.
This will not work. Employers of labor are tethered in all directions with their own responsibilities so employees must face theirs. These same employees want free accommodation, huge salaries and upon all they want their employers to bear their tax brunt.
Even the government does not pay tax for its employees.
The private employer is being squeezed like orange pulp in all directions. Unfortunately the arrogance of some members of some professional groups has led them into individuality and that is why the big business owners among them now will feel the pain and the pinch more.
If we have chosen sincerity as private business owners our ways would have been straight and our gains would have been altogether fair. Now the rich will also cry.
The current situation with tax payment, especially the current TAX REFORM LAW is not the absolute answer to nation building. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is a mere shortcut to more trouble especially for the future generation.
The current TAX REFORM LAW is short sighted and ill-informed.
It absolves or exempts the poor of responsibilities and overburdens the rich with too much to bear. It forgets that the poor today can become rich tomorrow if they are spurred to work harder. It forgets that if the rich are made to bear too much burden the path to poverty draws closer to them.
It encourages those rising gradually to refuse to declare in honesty their new status thus encouraging corrupt practices.
Our journey to nationhood should not be via a shortcut but by a long term approach to genuine success.
If you make taxation minimal, fair and compulsory for all citizens, it encourages all to participate and have a sense of belonging. The rich, the poor, they all belong to the nation and play their part.
Paradoxically, the same politicians who write off the poor citizens during taxation and for political reasons, will want them to come out to the polling booth when election comes.
That is double standards.
The politician just cares more about scoring political points rather than caring about national interest.
The same poor that is exempted from tax payment will be made to indirectly pay tax once his children are ready to enter government schools or benefit from the government. So who is fooling whom?
There is an insincerity in government.
These are discouragements for our young ones that we need to teach about nation building.
This is the reason why they don’t want to pay tax forgetting that those of them planning on running overseas cannot evade tax there.
Citizens must and will pay tax but for the citizens to comply, the government will have to be fair on all. A very meager taxation is better than no taxation.
To a large extent, government policies caused the current inflation: therefore the government must not punish the citizens further. To sum this up, let the government and its policy advisers go back to the drawing board on TRL, for the sake of the future generation.
OGUNGBAYI IS A MEDICAL PRACTITIONER BASED IN LAGOS
