Hoteliers in Oyo State have raised alarm with the way the state government is levying multiple taxes on the hospitality businesses.
Some of them, who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the taxes may force some of colleagues out of the game.
According to one of them, the consultants duplicate many items, brining the total of the taxes they pay to government to 18 different ones.
The source said it is having effect on their businesses, adding that they can’t even employ more hands because of the bills they need to pay.
Said the source: “Is it not too bad for the consultants to come up with 18 different taxes. The names they tag them are so ridiculous that you will have headache immediately you see this. This is despite the fact that government provides almost nothing in return for all these monies collected. We do almost everything ourselves.
“Another funny thing is that these people who they hired as consultants are not residents here. Their businesses are not located here. If they are residents and have businesses here, they will feel our pains. They should pity us. We buy everything with pain. You know all the price of diesel now. We can’t increase our charges. We can’t reduce salary of staff.
“We are helping government more than they are helping us. The jobs government claims they are generating are majorly through business owners.
“We urge our amiable governor, Engr. Seyi Makinde to help us look into this. Why we are not saying we don’t want to pay tax, government should not add to our burden. They should talk to these consultants to stop duplications of taxes.
