First Class, Business Class, Luxury Goods Users To Be Taxed

The federal government has concluded arrangements to tax users of First Class and Business Class ticket users, as well as consumers of luxury goods.

The disclosure was made by the Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun during a Facebook interaction with Nigerians.

Mrs Adeosun said that the new tax regime is in line with the new drive aimed at boosting revenue.

It could be recalled that the President Goodluck Jonathan administration had rolled out the initiative among a cocktail of measures to boost revenue.

The past administration came up with the measures following the decline in oil price from mid-June 2014.

Speaking, the Finance Minister responded: 

“We signed something yesterday on luxury goods: champagne, brandy, whiskey, wine, jewellery, high-end jewellery.

“We’ve signed something that will bill access charge on first class and business class tickets.

“We are just doing the final part of the implementation and we also want to try and amend the tax payer book on high-end cars, luxury cars.”

Speaking of the benefits, she said:

“If we move our tax-to-GDP ratio up, it means two things: One, we will be able to provide more services to our people. 

“Many of the things we are not able to do are a function of the fact that we don’t have enough money.

“We need to build more schools, we need to build more hospitals, we need to build more roads. This is not rocket science.

“Every country has challenges, there is nothing we are facing that other countries haven’t faced.

“Every poor nation has very poor tax compliance rate and every rich nation has high compliance rate. 

“So we want to be a prosperous nation. So what is in it for the citizens? 

“If everybody pays, there will be far more money in the pool to be spent on the services that we need.

“These things are what we call public goods, and they are funded from taxes. 

“If you have been all around the country, you’ve seen the need, you’ve seen the number of people that are living in poverty. 

“We can lift people from poverty if we have the right money.

“We could do so much more in the economy if we had the money. 

“If our public school system improves, many people who are currently paying school fees will move their children back into the public schools.

“We can recreate that; same with the health system. A lot of people die needlessly because we don’t have the right health facilities.”

She, however, stressed that those living, working and paying taxes abroad do not have to pay taxes in Nigeria.

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