President Bola Tinubu has declared that no one is a citizen unless he pays taxes to the constituted authority.
Tinubu said this on Friday at the Africa CEO Forum holding in Rwanda.
“No one wants to pay tax generally but wants to enjoy the infrastructural facility built by the government,” he said.
18 +
“Taxation is not the friend of the rich, the middle class or the poor. Everyone wants development. But they don’t answer the question of how the government is going to pay for it.
“Every human being expects development but the question they don’t answer is, how do you pay for it? You want a really good highway, but you don’t want it through your land. How do you grow?
“Everybody wants a good hospital, a well-equipped hospital, and they don’t want to pay taxes. How do you take care of the vulnerable, and how do you ensure the future of the children? How do you even do research and development in the pharmaceutical industry?
“We remember COVID-19, we remember what happened to the world overall. And so in a world where you can’t predict what exactly you need to do, you have to think about where the source and application of funds should be engineered so that tax is a priority.”
“A taxpayer is a citizen, whether corporate or individual. “If you are not a taxpayer and not exempted, then you are not a citizen,” Tinubu said.
