Govt, workers differ over Bayelsa new tax regime

March 11, 2013

Bayelsa State Governor, Mr. Seriake Dickson
| credits: transformationwatch.com

Civil servants in Bayelsa State are finding it difficult to understand the new monthly deductions from their salaries as Personal Income Tax by the state government, investigation has shown.

Our correspondent learnt on Sunday that the civil servants, especially those in the senior cadres, had been at loggerheads with the government over what they viewed as “outrageous deductions” from their salaries.

Our correspondent learnt that there was no well-defined system of taxation in the state before the emergence of Governor Seriake Dickson.

Rather, salaries of civil servants were reportedly taxed based on a flat rate of between six to seven per cent.

One of the state civil servants, who identified himself as Inegbagha, said there was no justification for the ongoing deductions from the monthly salaries of the workers.

“No government deducts what the present government is deducting from workers salaries in this state,” he complained.

But the Special Adviser to Dickson on Treasury, Account and Revenue, Mr. Timipre Seipulo, faulted the claims of the workers, explaining that all deductions from workers’ salaries were in accordance with the established law.

He said the Personal Income Tax had existed years before the coming of Dickson’s administration but that the workers were complaining because the provisions of the law had never been implemented in the state.

Seipulo said the government used the amended Personal Income Tax Act, 2011, which was signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan as the basis of deducting workers’ salaries.

He said the applications of the law had also helped to reduce the taxes of low income earners, noting that payment of taxes depended on the levels and earnings of workers.

“Only political appointees, people in the medical field and in the Niger Delta University, who are high income earners, are bearing the incidence of tax. The policy of the Federal Government is that taxes should be more progressive. It depends of one’s salaries,” he said.

He said the revenue generated from tax would be used in transparent and accountable manner.