Fashola hopes to fund 70 per cent of the state budget of N489.69 billion through taxation.
This came four days after the governor signed the budget for the current year into law.
According to him, in the advanced countries of the world it is generally understood that payment of taxes is the first step to prosperity.
He spoke at the seventh Lagos State annual stakeholders’ forum in Ikeja.
The former Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former Minister of Industry, Mrs. Nike Akande and others attended the event.
He said, ”This year, the budget is N489.69 billion and about 70 per cent of that is now been funded by the people of Lagos.”
“All the firsts scored by the state belong to the people. Noting is happening now that is different from what happened in the old Western Region during the time of late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. That government achieved a lot because people paid their taxes.
“That is the independence that the people of Lagos have gained by taking their destiny in their hands.
Defaulters
“Despite the compliance in tax by the people of Lagos, we must now begin to look at ways to make tax more efficient to pay and collect,” he said.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service, LIRS, Babatunde Fowler said the state government would not spare any individual or corporate organisation that fails to remit personal income tax of its employees or other taxes.
He disclosed that among 60 key tax defaulters in the state are 12 legal practitioners, a medical practitioner, a sports personality and 46 others.
Fowler noted that in few weeks, the names of the tax defaulters would be published to serve as a warning to others.
Speaking earlier, the former Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mrs. Nike Akande, who delivered a lecture entitled ‘Women and Tax,’ noted that larger percentage of women in the country are not captured in the tax net.
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