@OpenBudgets attended the Annual National Conference on Tax Expenditures held in Abuja, Nigeria. This event was organized by the Tax Justice and Governance Platform (TJ&GP) with the theme “Tax Expenditure Implications for National Development”
At the conference, Federal Ministry of Finance and Federal Inland Revenue Service – FIRS shed light on Nigeria’s taxation landscape. Panel sessions discussed how to leverage tax incentives and coordination while identifying gaps impeding effective governance in this sector including data availability issues, insufficient cost-benefit analysis and limited reporting systems & capacity.
To ensure best fiscal practices all around, the recommendation proposed include expanding tax expenditures evaluations beyond VAT and Import Duty while creating interagency platforms for coordination of such endeavours. Moreover, establishing an Exemption Monitoring and Control Unit in the Ministry of Finance would enable regular monitoring that could be used as valuable feedback loops.
As a member of the TJ&GP, International Budget Partnership contributed to the robustness of the conversation by sharing GIFT – Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency‘s transparency principles which set the tone for the panel discussion on stakeholders coordination on Tax Expenditures (TE).
Government MDAs that attended the conference included Federal Ministry of Finance Federal Ministry of Health Nigeria, Federal Inland Revenue Service – FIRS, Economic and Financial Crimes Commissionn, Fiscal Responsibility, Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, The Budget Office of the Federation, and Senate Committee on Customs.
There were also participants from professional associations including West African Tax Administration Forum, West African Tax Transition Support Programme (ECOWAS PATF), Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria -CITN, Society of Women in Taxation (SWIT), and @Association of Nigerian Business Women Network
The civil society, private sector, and media were also represented.
