Vanguard Media Limited on Tuesday, at the Civic Centre in Lagos, hosted the inaugural edition of the Vanguard Economic Forum series on Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Various speakers at the event made presentations on the theme, “The impact of Technology Adoption for MSMEs in a changing Tax Policy and Regulatory Environment”. Excerpt:

Degun Agboade, NASME President

By Yinka Kolawole, Providence Emmanuel, Elisabeth Adegbesan, Destiny Eseaga & Cynthia Alo

The President of Nigeria Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), Prince Degun Agboade, said that there is a need for the federal government to initiate a new tax regime, noting that the current template being used for large corporations can help small businesses.

He said that reviewing the country’s tax policy would further help in collapsing lending and tax rates.

Agboade stated: “We need to look at the law; I agree that the tax agency cannot do anything outside the law but the law can be changed. I am an operator; I have a factory and employ people, when you talk about fees, levies and taxes, for God sake who pays all of these? It is the operators.

“What I would say is that they should find a new tax regime, all the things they are using to set template that the large companies are using will not work. My suggestion is that we go for a new tax regime, and put it forward to the national assembly. With a new tax regime, it would be easy to fix all MSMEs into one group in a box and then lending and taxes would be collapsed for these set of people. We are not saying we would not pay but collapsing it into something that will make the MSMEs grow.

“Financial literacy among our members is just about 20 percent. Until we help these MSMEs by bringing them out of where they are, they don’t want to be registered because they are afraid of taxes. Am not against paying taxes but what am saying is that, make it equitable. Bring our people from where they are, help them register their business. Except we make MSMEs tax ready we are not going anywhere.”