Mr. Adede Williams, the National President, Association of Telecommunications Professionals of Nigeria (ATPN), has called on the Federal Government to declare an executive order in the telecom industry to eliminate multiple taxation.
Williams made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Thursday.
He said that taxes in the telecom sector should be harmonised to enable the industry grow.
He said that harmonisation of taxes paid by telecom sector should be backed with an executive order to enable everybody work toward a single tax regime.
“Times without number, we have been talking about the issue of multiple taxation.
“We know that the Federal Government had been trying to do something about it by calling the relevant agencies to look into the issue of multiple taxation.
“The issue of multiple taxation has been endorsed by so many government agencies from the federal to local level and stakeholders have actually been appealing to the Federal Government to address it.
“Our prayer is that one day the Federal Government will make a strong executive policy statement and what we want to see is an executive order to eliminate multiple taxation.
Williams said that the industry was not “finding it funny’’ paying different taxes to different groups.
Williams said that telecom facilitators and foreigners alike were law abiding citizens and could not go to war with agencies of government over the issue of taxes.
“What we are appealing to the Federal Government, states and local governments is to harmonise the taxes.
“There is this Joint Board of Tax Administration that has been put in place and there is need for the agency to go back to the drawing board to look for a solution to this problem,’’ he said.
He said that end-users, which were the subscribers, were also suffering from multiple taxation.
“That is why we have been appealing to government because we don’t want the end users to also suffer,’’ he said.
He said that consumers were complaining of high tariff and if the taxes were harmonised, the operators could work in a friendlier environment.
“We spend a lot of money on diesel as every business man wants to make profit on its investment and if harmonisation has taken place in oil and gas sector, why can’t the telecom industry be harmonised, which is next to oil and gas,’’ he said.