By FIRS Records Huge Turnover of N13b From Billionaire Tax Evaders
Amosu Jeremiah
The Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) has announced a record 13bn as tax revenue collected from high class tax evaders which represents the rich, high and mighty in the society.
This was revealed by the FIRS boss, Mr Tunde Fawler when he hosted the new minister of finance, Hajia Zainab Ahmed in a familiarisation visit during the weekend to update the minister on recent developments in the tax agency.
This development is coming less than a month after the FIRS commenced it’s substitution of accounts of billionaires who have not been faithful to remitting commensurate tax, the agency has announced the collection of N12.66 billion from these billionaires who previously dodge filing in their tax details.
Hajia Ahmed hailed the agency for its efforts in increasing the non-oil revenue base of the country. In the same vein, she encouraged other government agencies to follow the same path in working together to fish out all corrupt individuals.
“for us, the directive I have is to increase tax revenue and that is the most important task ahead of all of us. You have done well, the reward for good work is more work. The FIRS is a very important agency of government. I wanted to underscore this importance which is why FIRS is one of the first agencies in the Ministry of Finance that I am meeting” Hajia Ahmed commented.
She finally emphasised the government’s medium plan which is hinged on diversifying the economy from oil revenue to the non-oil sector. In her estimation, the report of the executive chairman of FIRS, indicates that the diversification effort is working.
The FIRS chairman further told the minister that the agency realised the sum of N2.983bn from payment on demand notices from property owner who were being assessed based on their turnover, and that 653 of 2,672 property owners has started filing.
On enforcement, The FIRS boss said the agency had collected a total of N47.5bn from 2016 till date and N225bn in total from audit, and collected more than N1tn above its January to August collection for last year.
“so far in 2018, the FIRS has collected N773.49bn in eight months. The above collected this year has already surpassed that of 2015(N767.33bn), and is set to surpass that of 2106 (828.19bn) and 2017 (972.30bn) with four more collection months left in the year” he concluded.
