Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has warned that the prospect of being absorbed into other agencies in the aftermath of tax reforms is anathema to the interest of the country.
Comptroller General, Adewale Adeniyi, said this during the public hearing on the tax reform bills at the House of Representatives.
If the bills are passed as presented, the NCS will lose its revenue collection power to the yet-to-be created Nigerian Revenue Service (NRS).
The Senate conducted its public hearing on Monday and Tuesday.
The customs boss said the proposals threaten its existence and will negatively rob off on the country’s revenue among jurisdictional conflicts.
According to him, the NCS should not be subsumed within the tax system but allowed to work independently due to the nature of its responsibilities.
Speaking during the hearing, Adeniyi observed sections that might cause jurisdictional conflicts between the provisions of the Joint Revenue Board bill.
He said, “Sections 23 and 29 of the bill, and section 41A of the Joint Revenue Bill have jurisdictional conflict issues.
“In the Nigerian Revenue Service Establishment Bill, Section 16 will completely legislate Nigeria Custom Service out of existence, if you pardon my words.
“In section 4S, there is also another omnibus provision. This particular provision gives the proposed NRS oversight functions over all taxes and levies.
“We are worried that this new law is seeking to override all previous laws that were done to address issues regarding the economy.”
He further expressed worry about the interchangeability of the words “tax” and “duties” in the proposed laws.
“The substitution of the word ‘tax’, the substitution of the word ‘duty’ by ‘tax’ in very many areas of the bill seems to overlook the difference and the objective which these two tools can do in an economy.
“Our understanding is that tax is used to generate revenue for governments, and it’s also used to distribute wealth. However, duty goes beyond that.
“Duty is more of a fiscal policy tool, an instrument by governments to encourage industrialisation, to discourage environmental pollution, and to put in some kind of public health order,” he said.
He added that customs specialised functions which include valuation, classification and origin determination.
These functions, he noted, will show measurable deterioration following integration with general tax authorities after their integration.
“We, therefore, made some recommendations and the principal recommendation we made was that we should encourage collaboration and integration of operations between customs and the tax authority, not to abolish customs or not to repeal a law because we want to do another law.”
