An entrepreneur expert, My-ACE China, has urged the Rivers State government to prioritize to create a one-stop-tax centre in the State.
This according to him, will protect firms paying taxes from violent and fraudulent revenue collectors which causes multiple taxation.
China said, sanity into tax collection arena would help Rivers State witness fraud-free and violence-free tax system that would boost businesses and investments in the State.
China, who is the CEO of the Mayor of Housing Ltd, admitted that a fraud-free tax collection system seems to emerge in Rivers State, but noted that the challenge can be improved if the sys is intentionally sanitized.
China spoke at the breakfast meeting jointly organised by BusinessDay Media Limited, known as the Voice of Business, and the Rivers Internal Revenue Service (RIRS), recently in Port Harcourt.
He suggested three things businesses want to see in the state in connection with tax collection including protecting the tax paying businesses, tax incentives, and harmonization to make paying taxes easier and less bitter.
The Mayor of Housing said he could see an intent of ridding the state of hoodlums by ensuring that there’s an emergency number business people can call when these people harass them and an intent to not only arrest these people but to prosecute them.
“So, River State is not only ready for business, but River State is no longer a haven for fraudulent tax collectors.”
The Mayor of Housing used the opportunity to advise the state government and the tax authorities on how to encourage business owners in the state. “Number one, harmonization of taxes. No private practitioner wants to pay tax and come back and discover he paid tax to the wrong collector because there is no harmonized system of tax collection.
“That is why the one-stop-shop by the River State Investment Promotion Agency (RSIPA) is something the River State Internal Revenue Service should embrace and harmonize and work closely with the recipe to ensure that all business practitioners and the private business people all jump and key into it as one place to know all the taxes one needs pay.”
The rest are protection of taxpaying businesses and companies, and one-stop-centre for tax matters and levies in the state. He also called for land sanitization with digital systems like Abuja did to make land acquisition and development seamless.
He commended the Rivers Internal Revenue Service led by the Executive Chairman, Sir Israel Egbunefu, for bringing sanity in tax collection and for partnering BusinessDay to begin tax education and engagement series with the private sector in the state.
He said he was not just saying this as a suggestion. “My flagship project, the Alesa Highland Sustainable Green Smart City in Eleme LGA is where I have championed the creation of the Alesa Land Development Authority that sanitizes all land transactions in Alesa community and make sure that there’s no room for land grabbers; that there is no room for land fraud. They ensure that every land transaction goes through that authority for sanitization.”
In his speech, the RIRS boss, Sir Egbunefu, outlined measures put in place to end tax touting, saying the system is being digitized.
In his welcome remarks, the General Manager (Business Development & Marketing), Dr Patrick Ijegbai, said the newspaper saw the need to rally the private sector and tax regulators to find solution to tax challenges to boost revenue for the state and boost compliance for companies especially by exploring the new tax laws.
A university lecturer, Prof John Ohaka of the Rivers State University, showed how digitalization of tax processes could make businesses pay less while government would make more revenue.
