FEDERAL Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) says it has started a move to block an average annual revenue loss of $10 billion to tax avoidance tricks by multinationals.
This is as Federal Government has given the service a target of N.505 trillion revenue for 2020.
Executive Chairman of FIRS, Mr. Muhammad Nami who made the disclosure in Abuja on Friday at the Service’s 2020 Management Retreat held at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel hinted that the amount was Nigeria’s share of the $50 billion lost yearly by African countries.
According to the African Union Commission’s Illicit Financial Flow Report, “Africa is losing $50 billion through profit shifting by Multinational Corporations and about $10 billion of this amount is from Nigeria alone.”
To block this and other identified tax avoidance schemes by individuals and corporate organizations, Nami disclosed that he had launched a comprehensive, ongoing tax collection reform process “anchored on four cardinal pillars of rebuilding FIRS’ institutional framework; robust collaboration with stakeholders; building a customer or taxpayer-centric Institution; and a making the FIRS data-centric institution.”
The executive chairman also disclosed the board, management and staff of FIRS have also set a target of improving the Service’s performance over the next four years by a “minimum target of $5 million staff-to-revenue- ration and a 10% tax-to-GDP ratio.”
Showing that the FIRS was gradually weaning Nigeria off its dependence on oil revenue, Nami disclosed that non-oil taxes “accounted for 60% contribution to the total collection” of taxes in 2019.
Projecting into this year, Nami stated: “For the year 2020, we have a target of N8.5 trillion “which is slightly lower than 2019 target by N297 billion.
“This is broken down into oil tax of N3.7 trillion and non-oil taxes target of N4.8 trillion.
“In 2019, the service achieved a total of N5.263 trillion against a target of N8.802 trillion, which translated to about 60% target achievement.”
The FIRS chief assured that the Service would play its “strategic role in the nation’s political economy, including supporting the actualization of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration’s commitment of moving the country up on the Ease of Doing Business Ranking and taking 100 million Nigerians out of poverty over the next 10 years and rebuilding Nigeria’s critical infrastructure.”
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