AMAC Giving Out 50% Tax Incentives To Cushion Effect Of COVID-19 On Businesses

The Abuja Municipal Area Council is giving 50% incentives and up to three months to tax payers in the Area Councils as part of its Palliative to business owners.

This was made known by Mr. Awoje Danlami; AMAC Head of Revenue Division during a Virtual Dialogue on Taxation and Post COVID Challenges  for Businesses held on Tuesday, 4th August, 2020.

Speaking during the dialogue, the Chairman of Abuja Municipal Area Council Hon. Abdullahi Candido also reiterated his administration concerted effort to mitigate the down economic impact of COVID-19 especially to ease the burdens on businesses within the Area Council.

"As a result of our sensitivity to this plight being faced by everyone., the council amongst strategies has opened up a citizens' engagement and feedback mechanism through an e-governance system to enable us navigate through the pandemic, Candido said.

The webinar moderated by Hon Abiodun Shoyemi-Essiet, SA to the Chairman on ICT, Donor Agencies and Civil Society Organisations and Mrs. Patience Olaloye  - Head of Information Unit - AMAC had four presentations.

The first presentation was done by Mr. Awoje Danlami; Head of Revenue Division who spoke on "Taxation and IGR". He said that the Council has given Tax payers 50% incentives and up to three months to pay their taxes as a Palliative to business owners. Also speaking in the same direction, the Divisional Head, Tenement Rate, Ann Ibrahim who spoke on "All you need to know about Tenement rate" said that Tenement rates are paid by the tenants and not the landlord  where the occupiers such building is not the owner of the building. She also reiterated that Ground rent is different from Tenement rates  as most people mixed  them up. 

She reiterated that Government building, buildings owned by Embassies and Diplomatic missions are exempted from Tenement rates.

Mr. Victor Aletor from Remita who spoke on "Payment Platform For Taxes, Post COVID-19 Challenges To Businesses" said that AMAC has adopted the Remita online payment platform to streamline all its tax collections via multiple channels to make payment of taxes much easier  for the payers.

"To facilitate the effective and efficient  processing of transactions, Remita makes use of Remita Retrieval Reference, a unique code that is generated for each transaction after the payer has completed the appropriate online payment forms, Mr. Aletor said.

He also emphasized that payment can be made online, through AMAC offices, POS, Digital Wallets, Cash Agents and NIBOX terminals which is able to accept cash payment.

In her presentation, Executive Director, Digizens Collaborative, Ms. Jayne Abuo who spoke on "AMAC’s Future Digital Trajectory" reiterated that  both AMAC and businesses should embrace new opportunities open by COVID-19 by considering Digitization for organizational and services efficiency which will save expensive cash; support new tech ventures targeting existing under performing industries, education, health, transportation and Agriculture among others.

The last speaker, Mrs. Niles Pyelshak; CEO, Cyber Alliance, USA who spoke on "Building Transparency and Accountabilities through Digital Innovations" said her organisation is directing its focus on Africa, especially Nigeria so as to attract foreign investment and business relationships; address misnomers about Nigeria and build global confidence; identify cyber risks that could prohibit global attractiveness; reduce cyber attack occurrences that will negatively impact the economic brands across industries spanning the entire country and position Nigeria as a leader in connecting cyber policy, corporate governance and human behaviour. 

In his closing remarks, the AMAC Supervisory Councillor on Finance the Hon. Gabriel Oluohu, thanked all the partners that made the Virtual Dialogue a huge success. 

He reiterated that all revenues generated by the Area Council will be judiciously put to use while calling on Tax payers to pay their tax on time.

The Webinar powered by Cisco Webex was organised by the Abuja Municipal Area Council in collaboration with Swift Reporters and Digizens Collaborative Platform.