The Minister of Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, has approved a draft property tax for Abuja that will see property owners start paying taxes on their properties.

Included in the Capital Gains Tax Act 2004, it was learnt that the FCT-Internal Revenue Service had begun the implementation of Capital Gains Tax in the FCT.

This was disclosed by the Executive Chairman, FCT-IRS, Alhaji Haruna Abdullahi, while speaking to journalists in Abuja.

He explained that the Abuja revenue service had grown its IGR to about N140 billion.The CGT charges a rate of 10 percent on the total chargeable gains (after making allowable deductions from the computation of such gains) accruing to any person on the disposal of chargeable assets in a year under evaluation.

Speaking on measures instituted by the service to drive revenue for the FCT, Abdullahi said the minister had approved some important mechanisms to achieve this.

He stated that, “in the last three weeks, the minister has approved some initiatives that are huge and will certainly change the dynamics in terms of the bottom line. Just recently, we submitted a draft proposal to the minister for the property tax regulation.

“The FCT-IRS Act empowers the minister to come up with a property tax regulation for the FCT. So, we had a long conversation with him and we suggested it to the minister, and he asked us to come up with a draft regulation, which we did, and he has approved the initiative.

“We have an inter-agency collaboration where we review these as the draft was done only by the FCT-IRS, but that’s not enough. You need stakeholders. He approved the initiative to go ahead and review the draft and then come back.

“At the end of the day, if he signs the regulation and it is gazetted and implemented, that alone should tell you that there is huge positive impact on the bottom line of the IGR in the city.”

He also disclosed that Wike has approved full implementation of the Capital Gains Tax in Abuja, stressing that this would also increase the revenue targets of the FCT.

“Just recently, we inaugurated another committee, we are now implementing the Capital Gains Tax law.

“Previously people just voluntarily go and pay, so there is very little payment in terms of capital gains tax.

“But now we have briefed the minister and he has approved the inter-agency collaboration and so we are now going to begin to implement the Capital Gains Tax fully.

“So you can imagine an FCT with a property tax, a fully implemented Capital Gains Tax, and then about a month ago there was a circular where the minister approved the implementation of Section 85 of the Personal Income Tax Act and Section 31 of the FCT IRS Act,” Abdullahi added.