Kogi to commence collection of property taxes

The Kogi State government said it has put modalities in place to commence the collection of ground rents and tenement rates from property and land owners in its efforts to boost the internally generated revenues (IGRs) accruing to the state.  Executive Chairman of Kogi Internal Revenue Service, Alhaji Yakubu Oseni, who disclosed this at a […]

The Kogi State government said it has put modalities in place to commence the collection of ground rents and tenement rates from property and land owners in its efforts to boost the internally generated revenues (IGRs) accruing to the state. 

Executive Chairman of Kogi Internal Revenue Service, Alhaji Yakubu Oseni, who disclosed this at a programme organised to sensitise members of the public, noted that the service chose to revive  dormant revenue outlets in view of dwindling allocation from the federation account.

The Executive Chairman who was represented by the Director, Personal and Income Tax; Mr Sadiq Ohindase stressed the need for property and land owners in the state to live up to their civic responsibility of prompt payment of tax so as to retain the ownership of their land and property.

In his speech, the Director of Tax Audit, Alhaji Salifu Sule explained that ground rent and tenement rates collected by the state and local governments respectively are taxes on residential and business structures, stressing that Kogi State has to revive its collection for government to discharge its social and infrastructural mandate to the society.

“For government to succeed in this regard, Kogi Internal Revenue Service has trained some personnel to embark on house enumeration and numbering from which data bank could also be generated for sound policy making and implementation”, he said.

A consultant on property tax, Dr David Aheruvo said besides infrastructural development, faithful tax payers whose records are in the data bank of the state have rights to certain social facilities and can also make input in housing and infrastructural development of the state.

He disclosed that there has been an enabling law for the government to generate resources from ground rent and tenement rates across the states of the federation, just as he wondered why Kogi State has left the source untapped for years. 

Aheruvo, who is the consultant handling the exercise said that enumeration of all property in the state would be done prior to the collection of the taxes and called for cooperation from members of the public.