FIRS Nets N4.012trn In 3 Quarters

BY COBHAM NSA, ABUJA – The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has so far collected about N4.012 trillion as revenue into the Federation Accounts in the first three quarters of January to September 2019.

Executive Chairman of the Service, Tunde Fowler said the amount, which is N77.89 billion above the N3.941 trillion collected during the same period in year 2018.

He told the Senate Committee on Appropriation in Abuja that the amount generated represents 60.77 per cent of the N8.8 trillion targeted by FIRS for 2019.

However, Fowler is confident that FIRS will achieve better performance than the N5.3 trillion collected for the whole of last year.

Speaking at the 2020 National Budget hearing before the Senate Committee, Fowler said the revenue situation would greatly improve if there are laws and measures in place to check loopholes in the system.  

According to him, courage is also required from the lawmakers to pass legislations that will sanction tax evaders and send culprits to jail.

He stated that with adequate regulations and effective applications of penalties, over 40,000 taxpayers with between N100 million and N1 billion as turnover in their accounts, who are currently not paying taxes, will quickly call themselves to order.

“Just a little over 3000 of the taxpayers, who have lien on their accounts have paid N103 billion. In Nigeria, if you have the courage to pass laws that will send tax defaulters to jail, the 40,000 tax defaulters will pay.

“In terms of whether revenues cannot be generated by enforcement, we have gone over various programmes to bring people into the tax net. Before this in 2016, there was a tax amnesty in which 5000 companies came through and they also paid N92 billion within 45 days. VAIDS was also N90 billion. And it took one year. The question I’d like to ask is: Can N90 billion make a difference in a developed or even a developing country? It will make a lot of difference.

“These are businesses or individuals that have income but had refused to pay taxes. Currently, we have close to 40, 000 of those accounts under lien for which they have not paid any taxes

“And I believe that this is a crime the society and I think that we are at that point now where we have no choice than to enforce payment. I did highlight earlier that 3000 of those accounts paid N102billion. I think that we have reached that stage where the society in general should not condone those among us who have the opportunity and privilege to have a job or to earn profits and also accept them not to pay taxes to contribute to the society.

The FIRS boss also debunked insinuations that Nigeria has not given or is not giving incentives to small businesses, saying; “I will first start with incentives. It was true that the past government, the government before this one, did give a lot of incentives.

“And if you look at history of business and incentives regardless of which country you are in, businesses do no grow because of incentives, they grow because they believe that they can make profits and of course, they want certainty.

“But in terms of incentives for the small scale businesses with turnovers of N25 million and bellow, within the Finance Bill that has also been submitted for approval, there is recommendation to reduce the Companies Income Tax (CIT) rate from 30 percent to 20 percent.

“Over the last few years, from 2015, we had waived all interests and penalties for small scale businesses that did not remit taxes or up-to date with their filing. Also, we have decided with the Ministry of Finance and government to assist the small scale businesses and I believe that the office of the Vice President did indicate through the President that we’d try to make sure that there is a policy that 40 percent of local expenditure is given to local businesses which includes the small scale businesses”, he said

Acknowledging that government requires huge funds to provide the infrastructure for businesses to thrive in the country, Fowler explained that once the environment is “conducive for business, tax revenues will come in. we have to look at most of them side by side.

“In terms of my target not being met, I did mention that my 2019 target is a 32 percent increase over my 2018 target. In terms of total collection, we are currently ahead of 2018 target by 13 percent which translates to N71 billion. We believe that the non-oil sector will continue to improve. We are currently at 72 percent in the non-oil sector.”

“The bulk of FIRS’ revenue comes from the middle of the year, from July to December. We are still hopeful that if the non-oil sector continues to improve, we achieve 80 percent of the target. That should be sufficient”, he assured