By Samuel Edu

|

To put an end to multiple taxation in the state and Nigeria, the Ondo State Board of Internal Revenue Service ODIRS yesterday organized one-day training on Inter-State Stickers and Single Haulage Fee.

The training held at the conference hall of the  State Internal Revenue Service had in attendance representatives from Signage, vendors in charge of Haulage and emblem in the state as well as Local Government Chairmen across the 18 local government areas of the State amongst others.

Chairman, Ondo State Internal Revenue Services, Mr Tolu Adegbie said the training is on the Single Haulage fee initiative of the Joint Tax Board as facilitated by the consultant of the Joint Tax Board from Abuja.

“Joint Tax Board consists of Chairmen of the State Internal Revenue Service of the 36 states of Nigeria inclusive of FCT, FRSC, Chattered Institute of Taxation, custom, immigration etc.

“These bodies meet regularly and they make decisions on ways in which they can make taxes easy for the people.

“On different occasions, we have had some persons stopping people on the road and asking for different kinds of money, JTB has come to say that there should be one Inter-State sticker and this will replace the emblem, so whatever is printed will be printed centrally and every state will buy with the same design.

“This is oppose to  where every state prints its own ticket and can decide to enforce in anyway they want, JTB is trying to streamline this.

“We said in Ondo State that we are not going to listen to them in Abuja  that this is how it is being done, that is why we brought the people who have been appointed by JTB in Abuja to come talk to us and let the people ask questions.”

“I urge all to take advantage of this opportunity and ask all the questions.”

Speaking shortly after the training, the Head of Technicals, Cyber-one Systems Network International, Osuntola Oluwaseun gave the assurance that the initiative by JTB will bring solution to the problems of multiple taxation.

“Drivers were constantly harassed, extorted and exploited on the road thereby leading to high cost of food. Imagine a journey from Osun to Lagos where you end up paying as high as N100,000 just because you are stopped virtually at every local government when this can just be simply harmonized.

“This is the essence of this  training, with the help of the Joint Tax Board and all the state Internal Revenue Services, we were able to come up with a programme called the Single interstate road tax sticker whereby a single interstate sticker is issued yearly and will help in curbing multiple taxation.”

“For vehicles on Haulage activities, they can pay one off for that particular trip instead of them getting exploited in multiple times whenever they are going interstate. This is what we have been able to achieve and strongly hope that this will commence soonest.”