The Ondo State Internal Revenue Service (ODIRS) has started a road show in the Ondo West Local Government Area to educate property owners and raise awareness of the importance of paying the state’s Land Use Charge.
Fidelis Fadugbagbe, the head of the ODIRS Department of Land Use Charge, told reporters in Ondo town on Monday that while the area’s compliance level was encouraging, the road show was intended to improve it.
He urged owners of residential buildings to comply, pointing out that the majority of local commercial property owners had already paid.
He said that the present administration in the state had stopped multiple charges on property and made Land Use Charge payment convenient for the people.
“People will pay tenement rate, land use and other charges, but the government says that multiple taxation should stop and direct that it should be collected together and later shared based on agreed percentage between the state and the 18 local governments.
“Now, once you pay Land Use Charge, it covers both tenement rate, land use and other taxes,” he said
Fadugbagbe appealed to property owners to pay their Land Use Charge, saying, “it will bring rapid development to their area, aside what the government will do, ODIRS as a collection agency will also encourage them with community impact project.
“The project may be street light, grading of roads or borehole; project within our budget because we are not a contract awarding agency, but we will take it upon ourselves to encourage any community that comply with the payment of their Land Use Charge.
“We will invite the community that are paying and ask them what can we do for them within our budget just to encourage them to be consistent in the payment,” he said
Earlier, the ODIRS Station Manager in the local government, Mr Samuel Awosusi, urged property owners to comply with the payment of their Land Use Charge.
Awosusi said the bill payable are from N1,000 to N10,000, adding that people living in the low value zones will pay N1,000, while N3,000 to N5,000 for medium value zones and N7,000 to N10,000 for people living in high value zones.
He said the payment was for landlords and not for tenants.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the road show took off from Ife Garage to Velentino, Funmbi Fagun, Sabo, Adeyemi, Oka, Odosida, Ugele Maroko, uparuku, Barracks Road, Udishin, Yaba and ended at Akure Garage.
NAN
