By Francis Akinnodi

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Ondo State Governor, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, has warned that the bid by some interests to amend the Value Added Tax (VAT) to favour the Federal Government against other tiers of government would fail.
The Governor made this known while appearing as a guest on a national television programme, “Politics Today” and monitored by The Hope.
This is coming a day after the Governor presided over a southern governors meeting in Enugu in which they reaffirmed their commitment to fiscal federalism and expressed their support for the position that state governments have been empowered to collect VAT.
Akeredolu believed that the issue of collection of VAT by state governments has been settled against the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) despite the court order directing parties in the dispute to maintain status quo pending the determination of the substantive suit before it.
“The states’ position is that having looked at the law, it is there clearly for us to see that taxation, or what we call consumption taxes, falls within the purview of a state, and only a state can charge consumption taxes.
“And I believe that those who are against it know of it. If they don’t know, people would not be rushing to the National Assembly for an amendment that would not see the light of the day; it would be dead on arrival.”
Meanwhile, the Ondo State Government had earlier revealed that it would implement the law on VAT that has been passed by the state after it has concluded its own research.
It was recalled that on August 9, Justice Stephen Pam of the Federal High Court Port Harcourt ruled that the Rivers State Government is legally empowered to collect VAT and not the FIRS.
The FIRS later approached the Court of Appeal in Abuja with a civil motion seeking a stay of the execution of the judgement earlier granted by the court in Rivers pending the determination of the case.
The appellate court led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, directed all parties to maintain the status quo and refrain from taking action that would give effect to the judgement delivered by Justice Pam, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.