Nduka Chiejina and Saviour Joseph
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has hinged the future of tax administration in Nigeria to technology.
Executive Chairman of the FIRS Mr. Babatunde Fowler said this when a delegation of the Areas Youth Forum (AYF) led by its President Gambo Ibrahim Gujungu paid him a courtesy visit on Monday in Abuja.
Fowler noted that giving the critical role ICT will play in the work of the Service, the FIRS has launched an IT solution that has simplified tax payment.
According to him, this IT solution “will ensure that all Nigerians carryout registration, pay all their taxes without visiting any of our offices. This solution can be used anywhere in the world. From the time you register your business with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), you get you tax ID, pay your stamp duties online.”
The FIRS boss reiterated that “the only sure revenue is tax revenue, we complain that we don’t have good infrastructure, good services, the truth is that without revenue those things can never be provided, no matter how much we complain.”
He lamented that because of the “over dependence on oil revenue, a lot of Nigerians did not pay taxes while some who paid taxes did not pay correctly.”
As the IT solution kicks in, Fowler noted that the Service has embarked on educating Nigerians on the need to pay taxes by producing “books, taking tax education to schools to teach the future generation the importance of paying tax. So the generation that is coming behind us who are still in primary and secondary school are being taught through our comic books on taxation the benefit of paying tax. That it is not something they should not be afraid of when they grow up,” he said.
He added that with the new tax database, where both corporates and individuals reside, people will be able to transact businesses anywhere across Nigeria. “So you don’t have to carry ID card with you as you can transact your business seamlessly across the nation.
In his remarks, the AYF President, Gujungu, commended the management of FIRS for “the impressive successes recorded in revenue generation, which has never happened in the history of Nigeria.”
According to Gujungu “you have in your own stylish and strategic ways expanded the revenue generation environment, without doubt, we are proud to say that Fowler has become a household name in Nigeria as far as revenue generation is concerned.”
He said the that expansion of Nigeria’s taxpayer’s base, inauguration of the new Taxpayer Identification Number Registration System and deployment of online solutions to ease tax payment were steps in the right direction.
National President of the Forum, Gambo Ibrahim Gujungu promised that the AYF would continue to use their platforms to support Fowler’s good initiatives and that of the Management of the Service.
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“It is on record that from your appointment till date, and with the support of your hardworking Management team and staff, Mr. Fowler has among other things achieved the following: expand our national tax base from 10 million to 20 million with a potential increase to 45 million;
increase States’ Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) by over 46.11 percent, that is from 800bn in 2016 to N1.16 trillion in 2018; for the first time in history, the Federal Government paid all 15 years outstanding PAYE tax liabilities to MDAs; Nigeria was able to move up positively by 25 points in tax administration section of World Bank’s ‘Ease of Doing Business’.
“FIRS recorded the highest collection in history from N3.30 trillion in 2016 to N5.32 trillion in 2018 with the Non-Oil sector contributing almost 54 percent to our total revenue collection; launching of the Consolidated National Tax Base for ease of access to taxpayer information,” Gujungu said.
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