By SIMON EBEGBULEM

BENIN—Former  Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, Mrs. Ifueko Omoigui-Okaru, weekend, said that government must build credible institutions that are saddled with the responsibility of collecting taxes from citizens.

According to her, building of organised institutions that are efficient and reliable, would motivate individuals to pay their taxes without coercion.
She spoke at a stakeholders sensitisation workshop and 2-day management retreat, organised by Edo State Board of internal Revenue.

Stressing the need for Nigerians to pay their taxes to government, she noted that government must provide basic amenities for the people so as to convince them that their taxes were not going into private pockets.

She said: “The revenue service needs to change and be a more organised entity that will give the public the confidence to voluntarily paying taxes and do it in a manner that is efficient and convenient to the tax payer. Our revenue services need to change in several directions, need to be more automated, have more quality staff, better structure and need to communicate better to tax payers in a transparent manner. So they are not just told what tax to pay, but they know how the taxes are computed.

“It is the responsibility of government to demonstrate to tax payers the benefit of the taxes they are paying, not in a general sense such as in roads or schools, but in a more immediate sense such as in the area where the tax payer is based, so that the taxpayer can feel the benefit of the tax he is paying in his/her own community.”