The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved a new National Tax Policy (NTP) proposed by the Federal Ministry of Finance, which seeks to provide a set of guideline, rules and modus operandi that will regulate Nigeria’s tax system.The document will soon be presented to the national Economic Council (NEC).

Explaining the details of new tax policy, minister of finance, Mansur Muhtar, stated that the NTP would enhance government revenue alternative base outside oil and gas. He said the overriding philosophy of the policy was based on the concept of sustainable platform for Revenue Generation and healthy competition, which is balanced with the need for an effective and efficient tax system.

 

According to him, it would uphold the application of fiscal federalism in the generation and expenditure of revenue by government at all levels as stipulated by the Nigerian constitution”. Muhtar further disclosed that the objective of the new tax policy was to promote fiscal responsibilities and accountability, facilitate economic growth and development, provide the government with stable resources for the provision of public goods and services, address inequities in income distribution, provide economic stabilization, pursue fairness and equity and correct market failures and imperfection

 

Meanwhile in another development, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has issues a statement to clarify confusion over the use of acronyms TIN and U-TIN. The agency on its website said that both TIN and U-TIN are codes used to uniquely identify taxpayers within the existing Database.

 

The only difference between the two acronyms is that, TIN refers to the Taxpayer Database on FIRS WEBPORTAL, while U-TIN is related to the National Taxpayer Database currently being developed by the Joint Tax Board (JTB) under the U-TIN Project.

 

The statement further added that TIN is the acronym for Taxpayer Identification Number. It is a code that is electronically assigned to every tax payer registered within the FIRS database for the purpose of identification of taxpayers.

 

U-TIN according to the statement is the acronym for Unique Taxpayer Identification Number. It is a code adopted by the U-TIN Project Committee to uniquely identify any taxpayer in the National Taxpayer Database which covers the three-tiers of tax administration.