The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) partnered with Afropolitan Media to provide a one-day training for journalists in Kano on the importance of tax awareness. The journalists, drawn from print, broadcast, and online media, were educated on the subject by Dr. Zaharaddin Salisu Maigoshi, an Accounting Department lecturer at Bayero University, Kano.
The workshop, titled “Sensitization Workshop on Nigerian Tax Administration for Media Practitioners,” was held at the Nigerian Union of Journalists’ headquarters in Kano. The one-day sensitization workshop was jointly organized by Afropolitan Media Limited and the Federal Inland Revenue Service.
During the workshop, Dr. Maigoshi informed the journalists that the tax system is a subsystem and will not work without the other systems. He noted that only authorized authorities can tax the people and that taxes differ from fees, licenses, and fines.
Dr. Maigoshi further categorized taxes into incidence, tax rate, tax base, and regressive, stating that the higher one’s income, the lower their tax. He urged journalists to educate the people on the importance of taxes to prevent evasion.
Aisha Umar Halilu, the CEO of Afropolitan Media, urged journalists to delve deeper into the significance of taxation, as the head of the Federal Inland Revenue Service Muhammad Nami has introduced new innovations in tax administration and collection.
The Chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Comrade Abbas Ibrahim, emphasized the NUJ’s gender sensitivity in ensuring the selection of journalists who participated in the workshop. He also urged his fellow colleagues to continue raising awareness among the populace about tax administration and collection.
