Aviation stakeholders have urged the Federal Inland Revenue Service to reconsider its recent policy requiring travel agents to pay taxes on air ticket commissions.
The appeal was contained in a communiqué issued after the Aviation Safety Round Table Initiative Quarter Four Breakfast Business Meeting in Lagos recently.
The FIRS policy not only mandates travel agents to pay taxes on ticket commissions but also imposes an additional tax on the corporate activities of those organisations.
Industry players argued that the dual taxation approach raised concerns about the fairness and feasibility of the taxation system in the sector.
During the meeting, stakeholders emphasised the need for a comprehensive review of the taxation policy. They asserted that the current framework imposes an undue financial burden on travel agents.
There have been several complaints of multiple taxation in the country by the organised private sector.
This prompted President Bola Tinubu in August to set up a Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee had set up the committee chaired by former Fiscal Policy Partner and Africa Tax Leader at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Taiwo Oyedele.
Tinubu said the committee shall have as its objective the advancement of viable and cost-effective solutions to issues such as the multiplicity of revenue collection agencies.
The stakeholders were advised to partner with ASRTI to lobby the various arms of government towards streamlining the charges and encouraging the growth of the industry.
Participants also said that it would be necessary to produce a draft legislation related to taxes, tariffs and charges and forward the same to the National Assembly for review and passage into law.
The communiqué also noted that clear identification and listing of all charges, taxes, duties and tariffs as provided for in the schedule from the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority would provide an opportunity for payers to better understand, interrogate and possibly eliminate some extraneous and duplicitous charges, taxes, duties and tariffs in the system.
The stakeholders also called on every agency to make a comprehensive list of its charges available in the manner of the NCAA, which created room for a more transparent understanding of charges.
In the communiqué, foreign airline operators were charged to eliminate the perception that Nigeria’s Lagos and Abuja airports charges were the highest and the most expensive in the world.
Stakeholders maintained that the perception was a huge scare to foreign investments and not attractive to the development of the airport and aviation strategy in the country.
They further canvassed for the review of high landing and parking fees for cargo aircraft in Nigeria, stressing that interested investors would be attracted to the country, rather than neighbouring countries like Ghana and Togo for their cargo operations.
The communiqué added: “It is important for Nigeria as a nation to cease taxing seeds but, instead, foster an environment that encourages businesses to thrive, bearing fruits that can be taxed, as the country cannot aspire to be competitive while at the same time, burdening businesses with complex processes.
“The existence of multiple charges and levies on cargo export is a huge disincentive to Nigeria’s cargo potentials and therefore, should be addressed urgently in the interest of the overall economy.
“It is imperative to remove the obstacles to the movement of cargo by air within and outside Nigeria by exposing and reviewing all existing known and unknown charges, tariffs and fees at the nation’s cargo sheds. In this regard, ASRTI will partner with the Aviacargo Roadmap Committee to address this issue.”
It also suggested that states should be encouraged to develop airports to increase access, and convenience for travellers and the resultant economic benefits to the country.
It, however, noted that there was a need to review the multiple charges collected from state-owned airports that strip them of the capacity to expand and develop their airports.
According to the participants, that oftentimes results in the states returning airports to the management of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria and worsening an already problematic issue.
