Nigeria Can Earn N600bn From Tobacco, Alcohol Tax Hike – World Bank

The World Bank has said Nigeria can create N600bn every year by expanding the extract obligations on tobacco and alcohol as suggested in the National Development Update report.

A Senior Tax Specialist of the bank, Rajul Awasthi, said this on Thursday at a virtual conversation on homegrown income preparation.

As indicated by him, Nigeria has one of the most reduced extract obligation rates on tobacco and alcohol in Africa, and the obligation rate on cigarettes is lower than the standard set by the Economic Community of West African States.

He encouraged the Federal Government to either receive the extract principles for tobacco and alcohol prescribed by the ECOWAS or Kenya to support the country’s income from tax.

He said this sort of tax increment would not affect most of the populace or low pay workers however improve the simplicity of tax consistence checking.

The tax specialist said, “On extract, what we see is that Nigeria has one of the least extract rates on alcohol and cigarettes; on cigarettes, they are even lower on the ECOWAS target.

“Thus, if Nigeria somehow managed to receive the very pace of extract obligation that Kenya has embraced, they can raise a lot of income. Additionally, in the event that they are to embrace ECOWAS, a norm, that will likewise raise the revue fundamentally. What is more significant is that these two sources won’t encroach on utilization development; truth be told, these mischief merchandise. In this way, taxing them is in reality acceptable from the wellbeing point of view.

“Extracts on tobacco and alcohol don’t affect by far most of individuals and consistence can be observed considerably more effectively by the consistence offices. On the off chance that the actions illustrated in our report are carried out, these extract obligations on tobacco and alcohol can raise more than N600bn per year