The financial advisory giant, KPMG has faulted the Federal government’s increase in excise duty, stating “Tax increases are better introduced at a time of economic boom”.
KPMG however shared different ways the government can generate revenue to bridge the widening gap in its financing deficit rather than the tax raise. It made this clear in its May 2023 report on the “Assessment of the 2023 Fiscal Policy Measures.”
The Federal Government has on its part introduced excise taxes increases ranging from 20% to 100% on previously approved rates for alcoholic beverages, tobacco, wines and spirits. The Federal Government has also placed a Green Tax excise duty on Single-Use Plastics, including plastic containers, films and bags was introduced at the rate of 10%.
The telecommunications industry and some other sectors of the economy were also not left out of these excise taxes.
Speaking about this new development, KPMG acknowledged the fact that the government wants to contribute to mitigating climate change and discourage the consumption of sugar, tobacco and alcohol.
However, it said, “It is evident that the more important priority is to generate revenue to plug the big and widening hole in its deficit financing.”
KPMG explained other measures the Federal Government can take aside from the taxes that are currently not in favour of business in Nigeria during this period.
The consulting giant said instead of imposing additional pressure on already struggling consumer demand, business margins, profitability, and increased competition with other African nations, it recommends boosting oil and non-oil revenue through alternative measures that do not create further difficulties for consumers and businesses. Additionally, it suggests implementing more efficient government spending practices.
According to the report, “Government could consider improving oil revenue by renegotiating or reconsidering our relationship with OPEC like Indonesia, Qatar did avoid being capped to a limit when and if the output exceeds the Quota given our need for urgent revenues for development and at a time, we are facing mounting debt challenges.
“Furthermore, unlike all other OPEC countries, Nigeria has not benefitted from recent high oil prices due to persistent oil theft and pipeline vandalism. This will however, only become effective if it can have NNPC develop Joint Ventures midstream with companies building commercial-size and modular refineries to process crude oil into derivatives as a means of increasing the revenues generated from selling extracts like PMS, LPFO, DPK, Jet A-1, AGO, PETCOKE, BITUMEN BINDERS, MARINE FUEL (that would obviously multiply the revenues generated from selling crude oil as a raw commodity).”
KPMG also said the government should explore the possibility of using an independent Joint Venture approach for its production-sharing agreement and urge the NNPC to generate cash calls independently.
It is said this is crucial to increase Nigeria’s revenue-to-GDP ratio to the average level of 18% in emerging markets. This measure would help to minimize deficit financing, which arises from non-sustainable debt cycles, without compromising the pressing need for substantial development spending.
“To protect its oil output, the NNPC needs to install high-pressure sensors on all feeder lines that take crude through flow stations from well-heads to terminals to be able to track and detect spikes, pulsations, surges that might occur from vandalization, pressure tapping at OCC terminals, and mobilize the office of the National Security Adviser, Nigerian Army, Marine Police, Nigerian Navy to arrest culprits and their back-end sponsors and accomplices,” it added.
The report also stated that in order to prevent potential collusion, the government may need to replace all security personnel who are responsible for detecting and responding to such cases with new employees. Furthermore, they could consider replacing this personnel every three months to prevent the risk of them becoming compromised and repeating the same behaviour.
According to the report, “The NNPC needs to also install modern metering technology at all 33 export terminals to avoid siphoning off crude oil inventories and reduce the difference between inventory delivered by feeder lines through flow stations from well-head to terminals. We believe improving non-oil tax contributions should be focused on expanding the tax net to cover the informal sector that contributes only 3% despite accounting for 30- 40% of the economy rather than increasing the burden on those already in the net.”
