The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Adewale Adeniyi, on Wednesday expressed the Service’s concerns on the proposed passage of the tax reform bills by the National Assembly, saying the provisions in the fiscal bills are in jurisdictional conflict with the Service’s mandate and the passage will threaten the agency’s existence.
The Comptroller-General, who made this submission at a public hearing organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, captured the key objections of the Service to the passage of the bills in a 17-page memorandum submitted to the legislators for assessment.
Specifically, he cited Sections 23, 29 and 41(a) of the Joint Revenue Board Bill as presenting jurisdictional conflicts for the Service as well as Section 1 of the Nigerian Revenue Service (NRS) Establishment Bill 2024 which, he argued, could override the Nigeria Customs Act of 2023.
He clarified: “Basically, these are jurisdictional conflict issues.
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“In the Nigeria Revenue Service Established Bill, Section 1 seeks to completely legislate Nigeria Customs Service out of existence, if you pardon my words.
“Also in Section 4, this is also another omnibus provision. This particular provision gives the proposed NRS oversight functions over all taxes and levies.
“We are worried that this new law is seeking to override all previous laws that were done to address issues regarding the economy”, Adeniyi added.
As a means of avoiding conflicts in the revenue agencies’ functions, Adeniyi advocated the need for collaboration and operational integration of the NCS and other revenue services’ mandates.
He maintained: “The principal recommendation we made was that we should encourage collaboration, integration of operations between customs and the tax authority, not to abolish customs, or not to repeal the law, because we want to do another law.”
Adeniyi recalled that based on the that efforts and resources committed to the Nigeria Customs Service Act 2023, the lawmakers should their best to support the implementation of the Act by removing provisions in the tax reform bills that conflict with the legal mandate of the Service.
Some of the tax reform bills forwarded by President Bola Tinubu on October 3, 2024, to the National Assembly for legislation are the Nigeria Tax Bill, Tax Administration Bill, and the Joint Revenue Board Establishment Bill.
