The Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Professor Suleiman Bogoro, has commended the present management of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for the increased remittance of education tax to the fund.
Bogoro, who spoke in Abuja when he led the management team of TETFund in an appreciation visit to FIRS said it is always good to honour those who deserve honour.
“It is good to acknowledge the goose that lays the golden egg as we are very comfortable in this house. Each time we meet in FIRS this is what we tell ourselves. This is because we witnessed about the highest jump in the collection of the FIRS of two per cent of education tax fund,” he said.
He said the management of TETFund and the board of trustees were excited and agreed that he lead the management team to come and formally express appreciation to the FIRS management.
Bogoro noted that TETFund and FIRS were veritable partners in executing the mandate of applying the two per cent education tax which came to be in 1993 but the funds were applied between 1999 and 2010 under Education Trust Fund, explaining that in 2011 it was refocused to original concept of TETFund replacing ETF and that the focus was direct and that is for public tertiary institution specifically, federal and state universities, polytechnics and colleges od education.
According to him, from 2011 when TETFund took off, it was just by half way along the lines and within that period, it has demonstrated collection of 81 per cent and that means it is more effective when it became TETFund. So, it necessary to come and appreciate the FIRS for the great job they are doing for the country,
He said: “More importantly we always have a numbers of interactive forum. For instance, we have joint interactive forum annually and through it we have privilege of having a report from FIRS and we also show them precisely what we have been doing with the money and we also have tax payers’ forum where we have an opportunity to appreciate those who pay the tax that the FIRS collects and remits to us and of course we also have annual tax reconciliation exercise which is about to commence.
“We noticed that the Federal Ministry of Education has already proposed that the tax should be raised from two to three per cent and the process of course was led by the Federal Ministry of Education and not by TETFund.
“We sought the cooperation of the FIRS and they have always assured us, precisely since the arrival of the present chairman, he did promise that there will be a difference and we have seen a difference and we said it is right to come and appreciate him and we are looking forward to exploring more avenues of increasing more collections of taxes.
“We have ensured in TETFund that we are responsible in applying the two per cent the money you collect with the sense of responsibility and that is why we can say without fear of contradiction that Nigerians acknowledged what we are doing with the money you collect.”
“We are determined to sustain and enhance performance in applying that money you collect and send to us. For the first time the University of Ibadan was ranked among the best 500 universities in the world and each time we met, the vice chancellor did confess that it wouldn’t have been made possible without the intervention of TETFund.”
In his response, the Chairman, FIRS, Muhammed Mamman acknowledged the commendation and stated that the TETfund appreciation was a call to do more for the country and assured that, they we will do so.
According to him, FIRS achieved the feat because of the commitment on the part of tax payers and the collaboration they have had with the agencies of government like TETfund in ensuring timely remittance of taxes and aggressive tax audit embarked upon by his colleagues and also the tax investigation that was carried out.
“The challenges we have for this year is enormous. The fact is that, companies last year passed through difficult times and we don’t expect them to turn in good result. We are not anticipating to get positive returns from them this year because of the 2020 lockdown”.
He assured TETfund of continued support and partnership in ensuring the repositioning of education sector which is the cardinal objective of the present administration.
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