Mansion Owners, First Class Travelers To Pay More Taxes

Following the introduction of a new tax regime by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), private jet owners, mansion owners and travellers who fly business and first class are to pay more taxes.

FIRS acting chairman, Sunday Odugbesan, made this known during the agency’s visit to the Senate President Bukola Saraki in Abuja.

“We have introduced some set of new taxes that are not in the law. We call them sub-charges on air tickets. If you are travelling out, you pay N15,000 if you are a business class flier or first class flier”

“We also looked at those who owned private jets. We thought that you enjoy facility or asset, which most Nigerians do not have access to enjoy. We would levy something we call sub-charges on you.’’ he said.

He disclosed that there are 130 private jet owners in the country. Having raised N100 million from a particular company that operates private jets, the service plans to convince government to tax those who fly first class and business class.

This is to make up for the dwindling revenue experienced as a result of downward slide of oil price, the uncertainty caused by the general elections and the late passage of the 2015 budget.

During his interaction with the Senate President, Odugbesan said that the FIRS collected N697.07 billion from Petroleum Profit Tax in the first six months of the year.
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According to him, the non-oil component income tax yielded N778 billion between January and June and Value Added Tax N376billion.

While the agency puts its annual target at N1.4trillion; N123.74bn monthly, the acting chairman indicated that the service is working out new tax regimes to shore up its revenue collection.

Odugbesan added the service collected N50billion from the oil sector. He describes the total tax collection from the sector as “the worst performance for the oil industry in the last 15 years”,.