By Giovanni Emephia
Owners of radio and television sets in the states shall soon pay rates as part of revenue generation plan by the board of internal revenue.
This was part of the resolution of the board as means of generatiing more revenue for the state.
Speaking at an interactive session with tax officers at the Revenue House in Warri, the Chairman of the Delta State Internal Revenue Service, Sir Monday Onyeme, urged staff to continue to be diligent in the discharge of their duties, adding that there was the urgent need to break new grounds in revenue generation towards the actualisation of the Stronger Delta vision of the state government.
The event which was to fine-tune modalities for improvement in the implementation of the radio and television license rates in the state, also had in attendance the IT solution provider for the project, Treasury and Financial Support Services Limited.
The chairman, represented by an executive director, Mr. Kelly Oghenekevwe, admonished Chief Inspectors of Taxes and those recently deployed as coordinators of the radio/tv rates scheme to work closely with the Area Tax Controllers in their respective tax districts to ensure an increase in revenues from the sector.
Also speaking at the event, the Group Head of Operations, Treasury and Financial Support Services (TFSS), Mr. Timothy Ozegbe, disclosed that the state was losing more than N8bn in projected revenue from the revenue sources, adding that his company developed what he described as “a dependable, verifiable and effective technology”, which, he said, would streamline the collections of the rates for greater efficiency.
Recall that the Joint State Revenue Committee which is a collaborative body of the state Internal Revenue Service and Local Government councils on revenue matters had last July agreed to work as a body to implement the 1998 Taxes and Levies (Approved list for collection) Act, item 14, Part three which deals specifically with radio and television license rates in the state.
