I am the proprietor of Gleam Stars School, a low-fee private school founded in 2013. Since we began, we have employed over a hundred staff. Everybody is looking for greener pastures. Currently, we have 27 staff.
We started encountering challenges when I voluntarily went to register the school with the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service.
Before that time, we had not been having issues, but then I felt that there was a need for us to comply with the regulatory body. We did all the necessary registrations. Since then, they’ve been giving us multiple taxation.
LIRS is one of the specific agencies that have been approaching us. They have always been coming. We also have issues with our local government with different rates here and there. Annually, we pay for business premises. We pay the development levy. Then, we pay the company income tax. Then, I also pay my own personal income tax. Then, local government — they bring different rates, radio and TV, this and that, education levy, annual dues, and all of that.
What actually happens if you refuse to comply or pay these taxes is that, as for the state government, the LIRS, we keep receiving their calls and letters. Then they could bring a seal of noncompliance.
But local government is different. You see different types of thugs coming to harass the school, just coming with the identity of local government officials. They are usually not trained. They come like they are going to fight or to harass.
We have not experienced the issue of seals because whenever they send their letters, or they make a call, we do go to see them. Rather than them coming to threaten the school, I go there myself to see their officials. If I have to pay, I make the necessary payment and go. It’s not always a good thing when government officials come into schools where there are children and begin to do all sorts of things. So, I don’t let it degenerate to that level.
We go to the bank to pay, and we are given the legal state government’s receipts. Also, the local government has a receipt which they use. We don’t just pay cash to individuals. We follow due process in paying.
The way it has affected our revenue is that, firstly, we don’t know how the taxes are being calculated. We don’t have a formula — like this is what we are earning and this is what we are required to pay. We just pay as they bring their demand notice.
I never envisaged these challenges. I didn’t even know that these kinds of challenges would be encountered. But as we grow, as we step into different levels, we see some of these challenges, and we just have to face them head-on and make sure it doesn’t affect the work we are doing.
Relocating outside Lagos is not even an option because we don’t know what we are going to meet when we get there. If we are to relocate the business, then you can imagine the number of children that will drop out of school again in this environment. So, it’s not something that we are considering doing. We only appeal that the government should help us look into this thing and cushion the effect.
One of the things that drives my motive for education is that, as a child, growing up was not easy for me either. I didn’t get this education easily, but I had to strive to get it. Then, also looking at our community here, the number of social miscreants, out-of-school children, teenage pregnancy, and all of that. Some of these vices are attributed to education because when all these young ones here are not adequately educated, they turn to crime.
This is our community. We don’t have any other place to go. What we do is that if we cannot repair the adults that are already grown, there is a way we can preserve the younger ones and ensure that we give them a good education so that they don’t grow up to become a nuisance. It’s now on us to see that we educate them and make them better. Those are part of the things that made me feel that this is what I can do for the young ones in our community here.
As narrated by: Opeyemi Olatunji (Amukoko, Lagos).
This snippet is published as part of the series, The Art of Taxing Poverty.
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