Ebonyi vows to drag Nigerian government to court over tax evasion

The Ebonyi State Government has threatened to drag some establishments operated by the Nigerian Government in the state to court over alleged tax evasion and failure to make remittances due to the state.

This was made known during the weekend by the state Commissioner for Finance and Economic Development, Dennis Ekumankama, in Abakaliki.

While fielding questions from journalists on measures put in place to boost the Internally Generated Revenue in Ebonyi, the commissioner said the state had commenced the collation of defaulting agencies and had notified them.

Ekumankama said, “We discovered through the consultant we engaged that some federal establishments in the state have not been remitting money to Ebonyi State. Having identified this, we swung into action and collated the names of such establishments.

“We have formally informed them that we would file a suit against them. We hope that by October 2017, when they start remitting what is due to us, there will be an enormous improvement in our IGR.”

The commissioner stated that the state government currently generates N300m monthly as IGR, insisting that accountability had always been the problem because people divert the funds to their private pockets.

“Our problem has been accountability; people have been putting the funds in their pockets. The measures we are putting in place will stop this anomaly.

“We are embarking on the enumeration of all taxable adults in the state. Many people are not paying taxes in the state,” he said.