Jude Chukwuemeka
At a recent event, the Executive Director, Systemspecs, Deremi Atanda made it known that if the country hopes to put an end to many of the challenges in its tax administration, it must be willing to deploy technology.
He said that there should be a social contract or social engagement between the government and its citizen, which technology has made easy for government to interact with its citizen, either corporate or individual.
He expressed that technology is the most single critical part of getting tax paid.
Today, the average Nigerian does not have a clear picture of what his or her responsibilities are. To make that easy, government can leverage it for enhanced generation. Many people see tax as oppression because they are not simply educated. However, Nigeria can still use the tool to educate when it comes to tax.
Atanda believes that when people are convinced rather than coerced, the issue of tax payment itself can be liberalised based on technology.
“You don’t need to leave the comfort of your home before you can make payment. There are many things about the payment space that talks about e-payment space, mobile payment amongst others. Government would do itself a great deal of good by leveraging technology.
“Considering the high cost of opening tax offices all over the country, Imagine the cost of doing all of that is converted to putting technology infrastructure in place, tax administration would have gone a long way,” he said.
