Putting Tax Into Proper Use

7 days ago

Government policies vary from place to place. Each time I hear people from other countries talk about how much they spend on taxes, I wonder how they are surviving.

I won't say there is no tax in Nigeria, there are taxes but it is mostly felt by those who work in the government, private sectors and those who do businesses.

The tax affects everyone but it is not obvious, the majority of people pay unconsciously as they buy goods and render services.

As a private school teacher, It was just one year I paid tax consciously. That was in the year 2021. As at then, we take table payment, each month, fifty naira is deducted from our salaries before it is handed over to us.

But after that year, the school authority stopped the deduction considering how difficult things were and how little our salaries were.

Currently, I won't say we are not paying taxes, our salaries have been increased and I am sure, the school has made a way to deduct the tax without necessarily bothering us directly.

When it comes to tax, I will say we are lucky to some extent in this part of the world and in my state to be precise, because some places in Nigeria pay taxes on almost everything.

Most people when they come down to Nasarawa state, they will be like you people are enjoying life here, life is cheap here. Well, I can attest to it because I have been privileged to travel to certain places and I have seen how expensive it is to survive there.

It is very disheartening to see that people pay taxes even out of the little they earn yet things are not becoming better in the nation. I am saying this with regard to Nigeria.

I know we don't pay much tax, it is little in my place that we don't even notice it, yet if you multiply what is being paid by the number of people paying, you will realize that it is not a small amount of money. The question therefore is, what is the government doing with the money?

Our hospitals are very bad in terms of equipment, and our schools especially the primary and secondary are bad-looking, lacking teaching materials and even comfortable classrooms for learning.

There are bad roads everywhere and high rate of employment. So, what are they really doing with the money they are realizing from the citizens?

People are struggling to pay bills, yet they are forced to pay taxes in the name of accumulating money to make things better for everyone but we are not seeing it happening.

The other day a bike man carried me and on our way, some bike union officers stopped us and collected some money from him as tax then issued him a receipt. He told me they are forced to pay that amount every day and failure to do so will attract punishment.

I am not against all these taxes but my concern is what are they using the money for, and where is it going to? Unfortunately, this question doesn't have a direct answer.

Since, I can't tell what the government is doing with the tax they are taking from us, I wish they can make it obvious by fixing certain things that are not okay in the nation like, supplying more medical tools to hospitals, building good and comfortable schools and repairing our bad roads.

Photo by Tranmautritam

Even if they don't make jobs available, if these ones are handled, I am sure that people won't feel bad for paying taxes. Unfortunately, wishes are not horses, we can only pray for things to get better.