MODALITIES FOR SHORING UP ABIA INDEPENDENT REVENUE

 
For the first time in the recent, the oil price in the international market plummeted, suggesting that countries and states dependent on petrodollars should look for better ways of remaining afloat. Many states employed many survival techniques, Abia not exempted.
Coming home, Abia looked into areas she can leverage on to drive it’s economic policies and growth. That gave birth to the 5 pillars of the Abia economy of today to include; Agriculture, Education, Commerce and Industry, SME development and Oil and Gas with other enablers such as road infrastructural development.
Another area of interest that required Abia to harness properly was its internally generate revenue (IGR) which was almost used as settlement for the political class. This also gave rise to the ever increasing multiple units of taxation as a result, people never took payment of taxes seriously because of the prejudice of it going into personal pockets instead of the Government coffers. But can Abia really grow this way?
In a bid to shore up the independent economy of Abia, Abia State has engaged the services of only the management of CSDC Global Revenue consultant, a revenue management consultancy firm with track records in revenue mobilization across many states of the federation and some other African countries of the world.
Interacting with newsmen in Aba, Dr. Ugochukwu Ogbonna, Chairman, Abia State Board of Internal Revenue noted that Revenue collection is an exclusive job of professionals. He maintained that the present Government has done exceedingly well to ensure the elimination of double taxation so that people will be happy to pay their taxes.
He assured tax payers in the State that all they need to pay such as ASEPA bill, ABSAA bills and many others has been encapsulated in one demand notice such that it makes it easier and genuine to pay taxes with ease and collect their receipts from the banks same time. Dr. Ogbonna noted that no one should pay what is called operational permit as it is illegal by the law.
Dr. Ogbonna said that there are about 32 courts set up to prosecute defaulters and tax evaders after 30 days of notice.
Responding, Mr. Akinyele Oladeji the State consultant on revenue mobilization stated that individuals are not permitted to collect taxes rather, all banks in Abia State are now the revenue agents where people walk in and make their payments as indicated on the demand notice.
He differetaited the two types of taxes to paid in Abia as Consolidated Revenue and Flying Revenue. He stated that consolidated revenue are all paid into the banks while all the flying revenues as those paid by tricycle (Keke NAPEP) riders are being collected daily by their union leaders.
Mr. Oladeji maintained that people can now make payments from the comfort of their homes usingwww.abiairs.com/pay to access the payment portal of the State BIR.
He maintained that people should stand on their rights not to pay to fraudulent individuals.
For more enquiries on the legal taxes to pay in Abia State use info@abiairs.gov.ng or call; 08184222428