By Patrick Ochei
The highly revered Omu Anioma, HRM Obi Martha Dunkwu has lauded a group under the name, Delta State Tax Justice and Good Governance Platform for carrying out sensitization and advocacy against a situation where those in the informal sector are double taxed or not getting value for their tax payments as a result of the multiple and ineffective modes of administering tax collecions.
The group today, 4th March, 2022, paid an advocacy visit to the Palace of Omu Anioma where they solicited her support in making tax payers in the informal sector know their rights while urging government to see reasons to streamline payment of taxes into a single and effective form.
Omu Dunkwu said that the existence of government in the markets for instance, was not supposed to encumber and be a burden to the struggling petty traders but to alleviate their sufferings by ensuring that they are not double taxed and that they should benefit from the dividends of paying taxes.
Omu Dunkwu frowned at the situation where State Government, Local Governments, Ministry of Environment and others collect taxes in multiple ways from those in the informal sector, maintaining that such tax burden should be discouraged.
Ealier, the Coordinator of the Tax Justice and Good Governance Platform, Onyeka Ejafu had appealed to Omu Dunkwu to add her voice in condemning the tax injustice in the informal sector of the State.
She said those making up the petty traders, artisans, transporters and many other enterprising micro businesses are being mistreated in the process of collecting taxes from them.
Onyeka stressed that the group had been carrying out sensitization and advocacy in the past years so as to equip those in this category with information on how to pay their taxes and get value for such payments.
She said it was discovered that these tax payers more often than not, sustain injuries and loss of property in the process of forcing payment out of them.
The Coordinator hinted that in collaboration with CISLAC and OXFAM, they came up with brilliant ideas on how to stop double taxation which informed the advocacy as part of plans geared towards protecting them against individual and corporate sharp practices in tax collections.