Airline Operators of Nigeria has urged the Federal Government to exempt its members from paying Value Added Tax.
Already the Federal Inland Revenue Service has said that it recently came up with some initiatives to help domestic carriers meet their Value Added Tax remittance obligations.
The FIRS said such initiatives included a payment window to assist domestic airlines in paying their VAT without stress.
But speaking with The Point, The Chairman, AON, Capt. Nogie Meggison, said his organisation actually wanted the FIRS to waive VAT payment for domestic
airlines.
The AON boss appealed to the FIRS boss to take a closer look at the VAT payment by domestic airline operators in Nigeria, adding that if VAT were to be removed, it would make air fares cheaper.
He said, “Accra has become the hub for doing business in West Africa today due to the fact that Accra has adopted a deliberate economic policy to make the city a hub for West Africa and as a way of achieving this, it adopted zero VAT for air transportation.
“This has also lowered taxes on aviation fuel by 25 per cent, which has attracted more airlines to fly into Ghana for technical stops and connections to cities around the world.
“This has had a multiplier effect on the economy and the country at large. Nigeria, therefore, needs to take a bold economic step to jumpstart aviation.”
Above all, he noted that if this request could not be granted, some rules should be relaxed for the domestic operators regarding the VAT payment.
He said that once operators in road, marine and rail transportation sub-sectors could be given enough time to pay their VAT, their counterparts in the aviation sector should be treated the same way too.
“If the others can be exempted along with even foreign airlines, we demand for more dialogue between the FIRS and AON in order to look into complaints lodged by our members.
“Airlines have no issues with paying or collecting the statutory VAT for FIRS, but there was the need to take a look at the issue of fairness as it favours our competitors, seek clarity on the automation and get a 30-day period to allow for invoicing, reconciliation and billing before payment,“ he said.
