In an effort to boost growth in the housing sector and encourage investment, stakeholders have urged the government to offer tax holidays to developers.
According to the PUNCH, this was said during the recent Real Estate Outlook for 2024 event in Lagos with the topic “Looking Ahead, Gauging Opportunities.”
The president of the Nigerian chapter of the International Real Estate Federation, Gladstone Okpara, encouraged the federal government to grant tax holidays to developers in order to promote affordability.
“The tax authorities are unnecessarily targeting the built sector, and they are unaware that this is hindering the businesses of the taxpayers who are paying these taxes. For example, the government may declare that taxes be lowered or eliminated temporarily to promote affordability and homeownership rates but when developers are being hindered and they are unable to raise the capital necessary to operate their enterprises, as is the case in other countries.”
“The kind of stifled built environment we currently have is the result of uncontrolled tax generation and an immature tax collection management.”
In a same spirit, the CEO of UPDC Plc, Odunayo Ojo, promoted tax harmonization as a means of preventing duplicity in the industry.
“Tax can be a way to catalyze economic recovery through tax holidays, ensuring that taxes are used as a value-adding process as well as a means of generating revenue,” the speaker stated.
Ojo said that there was a shortage of landed property in the nation and that any action taken to provide for adequate land would be appreciated.
“Anything that can be done to optimize the use of land is welcomed, as there is a limited supply of land. A large portion of our precious land is being underutilized or developing into slums.
“Therefore, when we have plans for urban redevelopment, those valuable land parcels become available for developers to engage with.”
Furthermore, due to population growth, medium- to high-rise buildings should be built to boost density rather than low-rise structures taking the place of vacant land. More significantly, is that the urban regeneration plan includes provisions for making sure that the infrastructure is designed to sustain the increased density.
In a similar vein, Opara claimed that expansion and maximisation were required and that appropriate policies needed to be put into place for that.
“We can move up (high-rise buildings) and create more affordable housing that low and middle-income earners can access with ease, rather than building down,” he stated.
