PAULETTE ORJIME- Abuja
THE minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed has charged the new commissioners of the Task Appeal Tribunal (TAT) with high level of professionalism.
Ahmed made this call yesterday in Abuja at the inauguration of the Commissioners of the Task Appeal Tribunal, Nigeria.According to the Minister, the expectations of the stakeholders are quite enormous. In her word; “As Commissioners of the Tax Appeal Tribunal, the expectations from all stakeholders are quite high.
“You are expected to discharge your duties with high level of professionalism, integrity, diligence and fairness to all parties in order to engender public trust and confidence in our tax system. ”
The Minister said that, “One of the key objectives of the government in setting up the Tribunal is to reduce the incidence of the tax evasion and improve the tax payers’ confidence. Others include, the need to ensure fairness and transparency of the tax administration and to minimize delays and bottlenecks in adjudication of tax disputes.”
Ahmed added that: “As an essential component of the ‘change’ agenda of the present administration, Nigeria launched a Revised National Tax Policy in January 2017 and a provided tax amnesty platform through the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme.
“Very fundamentally the current tax policy of the government places emphasis on areas of harnessing all necessary inputs towards achieving voluntary tax compliance. We therefore urge you to ensure quality service delivery in line with extant laws , particularly in supporting the government quest to improve revenue generation and minimize the monolithic dependence on oil revenue.”
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Permanent Secretary , Federal Ministry of Finance , Dr. Mahmoud Isa -Dutse said that, for the purpose of administrative convenience, the tribunal had been established in eight zones to cover the the six geopolitical zones, Abuja and Lagos .
Isa- Dutse added that since the inception of the tribunal in 2010, about 489 appeal cases had so far been filed with 409 concluded.
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