As part of strategies to eliminate corruption, leakages and boost revenues, the Federal Government has said that effort was ongoing to deploy technology in the tax collection, saying that tax collections and payment would also be made easier for the people to voluntarily perform their civic obligations. Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Mr Ade Ipaye disclosed this at a public lecture organised by the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos where he said the nation’s revenue leakage would be greatly reduced with the use of technology while bribery and corruption would also be effectively addressed.
He said: “Federal Government is increasingly deploying technology to boost tax collection. It may not have gotten to the optima level but gradually I am aware that some technology are being used and some being proposed to be used. “As I told you earlier, they have installed the single window at the port even for people paying.
We will find means to ensure that all payments are direct even fines are paid into government POS direct. Gradually, we would make full use of technology. “According to the Statistic of Tax Revenue Trends in OECD, in 2015, Denmark had the highest tax-to GDPratio (45.9%), followed by France (45.2%), Belgium (44.8%), Finland (43.9%) and Sweden (43.3%) followed by Chile at (20.5%. Seven countries– Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy and Sweden had tax to GDP of above 40 %. In contrast 9 countries –Australia, Chile, Ireland, Korea, Latvia, Mexico Switzerland, Turkey and United States had tax-to- GDP ratios below 30%. “On the African continent, Nigeria’s tax to GDP is a mere 6% significantly lower than that of south Africa (26.9%), Ghana (20.8%, Egypt (15.8%, Ethiopia (11.6%) and Gabon (10.3%). This may in factbethereflectionhowpublic service has been funded in Nigeria over the years, simply by mining and selling crude oil.”
