The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) on Wednesday in Abuja said that a revised version of the Value Added Tax (VAT) would soon be presented to the National Assembly.
Mrs Ifueko Omogui-Okauru, Chairman of? FIRS, stated this at the ongoing investigative hearing of the House of Representatives ad hoc Committee on the management of the subsidy regime .
Omogui said that it was a policy of government not to charge? VAT on? Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly called petrol and kerosene imported into the country.
According to her, this was deliberate to save Nigerians from paying heavily for the products.
“Government has been very sensitive on the issue of tax on petroleum products which is a major source of revenue,’’she said.
The chairman noted that though PMS and kerosene were taxed in other countries, the Nigerian government had been sympathetic to Nigerians.??
She promised to forward documents authoursing the service not to charge VAT on petroleum products.
Similarly, Mr Francois Bussagol, Managing Director of Total Oil Nigeria Plc in his presentation, said the company was paid N11 billion in 2010 for the importation of 251 million litres of petrol.
While in 2011 it was paid N16 billion for importing 211 million? litres.
He explained that the company did not collect any payment on kerosene which it sold at N50 per litre to the public.
Mr Osita Chidoka in his presentation said that the number of vehicles operating on diesel was few because of the cost of the product.
Chidoka said that 5,000 tankers transport fuel daily across Nigerian roads.
He said that 25,305 vehicles in the country run on petrol while 9, 984 run on diesel, representing 99.7 and 0.3 per cent respectively.
According to him, 88 million Nigerians travelled by road in 2010 while 14 million travelled by air at same period.??
He urged that committee to advice government to initiate policies that would encourage operators of mass transit programmes.
Earlier,Rep. Farouk Lawan (PDP-Kano), the chairman of the committee directed the FIRS to make available to the committee paper of authorisation and all oil companies that benefited from the waiver.
He also asked for the details of income and other taxes paid by the companies involved in importation of petroleum products.
Similarly, the committee had requested the Total Oil Nigeria PLc to forward to it, letters of credit and certificate of discharge and bill of laden from 2006 to date.