A constitutional lawyer and former presidential adviser on legal matters, Professor Auwalu Yadudu, has warned that some sections of the proposed tax bills may undermine the supremacy of Nigerian constitution.
Mr Yadudu revealed this on Wednesday when he appeared before tthe House of Representatives Public Hearing on Tax Reform Bills convened by the House Committee on Finance at the National Assembly Complex Abuja.
The four proposed legislations are: The Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill, the Joint Revenue Board Bill, and the Nigeria Tax Bill.
The two chambers of the National Assembly have passed for a second reading the four proposed legislations.
Speaking before the committee chaired by Mr Abiodun Faleke, Professor Yadudu said, “I have reviewed this piece of legislation and I have serious concerns with the potential implication of these bills.
“These are pieces of legislation that are liable of being amended or repealed. Now I shudder to foresee what would happen if you overlook some existing legislation and even in the language you have used in the legislation.
“They want to exclude that whatever these pieces of legislation have not approved of, or admitted, then they will amount to have no effect.
“Therefore, it will not withstand the constitutional litmus test to say that any other piece of legislation that provides something contrary to what is being proposed will have no effect. Related to this is section 141, where an introduction is made of the “supremacy clause.”
He explained that, “The act or the bill being proposed is given the supremacy status like the Constitution. Only the Nigerian Constitution has supremacy, and therefore if you were to enact any of these bills and you enact them on the basis that they are supreme over any other law which would contradict them, then that would be wrong, and that would be contrary to the Constitution.”
On the composition of the board of the National Revenue Service, the constitutional lawyer said the proposed NRS board should consist of representatives from the 36 states and the FCT to make it truly federal.
“The third issue I would raise also from a legal point of view, is the boards that you have established, I think it is the tax administration, you are establishing a board, management board, giving the name National Revenue Service, but having members that are only ex-officio mainly with the chairman of the board and six representatives of geopolitical zones.
“I think this goes contrary to the federal character of this nation, in that you either call it Federal Revenue Service Board, in which case you can have any number of ex-officio of your members, or if you want to make it truly federal, then you should have each state represented on that board. My preference is that it will be federal.
It is wrong to have such a bill or such an enactment that looks federal in outlook but also subsumes states interest in it.”
Professor Yadudu also faulted the sections of the bill that proposed to create tax boards for states and local governments..
He said, “The fourth point, Mr. Chairman, is that again the tax administration act even before it becomes act has established that there shall be established for state governments certain boards.
“I think if you question the legal capacity and entitlement of the National Assembly to enact these laws, what right do they have to establish by feat boards for states and boards for local governments? I think this is also a serious constitutional issue that I think is avoidable.”
On inheritance law, the legal luminary said, “On the final note, Mr. Chairman, there is the capital transfer issue that is being disputed that it is not an inheritance tax. I read the piece of legislation. I read that it is requiring any law including customary laws. And that if you are entitled to any solution, it is not divided and it is charged up by taxation.
“I think, as has been submitted, this is not acceptable for Muslims and Christians. There was a submission yesterday (Tuesday) that you are imposing a tax on an entitlement of an inheritance by members, and then you are calling it, but it is not an inheritance tax. Yesterday, I used the example, if it quacks like a duck, swings like a duck, behaves like a duck, it is a duck.”
Other stakeholders that aligned their presentations with Mr Yadudu include the Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, Committee of FCT Imams Initiative, Kano State Government, among others.
