In "The Wealth of Nations" (1776), Adams Smith set forth four maxims, or canons, of taxation. These four maxims have been summarised in four words: Equity, Certainty, Convenience and Efficiency. When Adams Smith postulated these canons perhaps he did not envisage the complexities of business arrangements in today’s world. Otherwise he would not have added certainty and convenience to his list.
Sometime ago, I was daunted by the headlines of some newspapers that a bank has commenced winding up proceedings against a large oil marketing company in Nigeria over unpaid loans relating to certain transactions. This was not the disturbing bit of the news. Tucked in somewhere towards the end of that article was the information that the owner of the company (who is merely the majority shareholder; the owners being the investing public as this company is publicly traded) lives like a sheik, and owns several elite properties in highbrow Ikoyi, a collection of posh cars, private jets, and e
When the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act was signed into law by the Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, many civil society organizations hailed the development as a step towards transparency and accountability in government. Essentially, the FOI guarantees (or is meant to guarantee) public access to information held by public institutions and provides protection for whistleblowers.
There is a general perception that the tax man reaps where he has not sown. There is some verity in this statement in that the tax man would wait for you to patiently cultivate your business and when it begins to yield fruits, he would demand a slice of your profits. This slice could be up to 30% if you are a corporation.
When you ask people what is productivity? They tell you productivity is efficiency, result, or output. But I discovered that there is an aspect of productivity that people don’t understand. It is called product-activity; which means every activity that result into a product is productivity, while any activity that does not result into a product is a game of futility.
