 The president of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria CITN Adeshinu Adedayo says the federal government's plan to raise about 9 trillion Naira from value-added tax in three years is more than feasible. Adedayo said this over the weekend on the sidelines of the Institute's 2022 annual dinner. Justice Akadone tells us more. As with tradition, the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria CITN takes time to unwind as part of activities to wrap up the year. Although it is an informal gathering, the Institute expresses commitments to push government in the right direction with its tax policies. Reacting to the federal government's plan to ramp up tax collection, some members of council speak on the achievability. If we have 211 million estimated as the people who are supposed to be the projected population of the country, then the next question is who are those among them that are going to pay this? Now the indirect tax, which is where VAT belongs to, is a tax you will pay without knowing it. And the truth is when these policies are aligned with the objective of the government, I can tell you that when it comes to issue of VAT, we are not yet at the optimum level and it is something that we should start looking at the gap between what we are able to do and what we want to actually achieve. We need to do a lot of things about our ICT and the banks also need to cooperate with the government. Once you can track income, it is income and whenever it is income, it is taxable. So track all the income coming into the country. During that alone a lot will come in. Then all the people in the tax net and expand the tax net, don't increase the tax rate. And from VAT in particular is a matter of increasing the tax base and how do we increase the tax base? We need to fully automate our tax collection system. We need to have the database of the eligible tax payers. Then the transactions being made, once they go through this database, they will surely increase the revenue. The host governor who was represented by the commissioner for finance, Rabu Olowo, assures that government will continue to make infrastructural development a priority, but however registers residents to play their part. Taxation remains the primary and major source of revenue for government, especially the legal state government, to implement all of its programs. The challenges that we face today as government within the context of global economic downturn is how to generate enough revenue to meet our increasing needs of our citizens without increasing their tax burden. This calls for greater ingenuity on the part of government, especially tax practitioners and professionals. Color issues in the nation's tax base take center stage, including the proposed 20 percent tax on non-accoholic beverages. In other clients, you target the harmful products as well as luxury goods. But in Nigeria, why should we target the beverages? I think that all the products that will enhance the health of the populace, we should even make them tax-free. What the institute does is to advise government on what they have felt as the cause of taxpayers, right, things that they need to change in terms of policies, right, as it affects taxpayers and as it affects administrators. The CITN believes that the federal government can do more with taxation by bringing more people into the tax net as opposed to increasing the burden of taxation on the citizenry.