The Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KDIRS) said that it collected N26.53 billion as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for the 2017 fiscal year and also set a target of N42 billion for the current year.
Making these disclosures during a media chat, the chairman of the Service, Mukhtar Ahmed, said that the N26.53 billion generated represented 52 per cent of the N50.2 billion projected for the year and an increase of N3.5 billion over the N23 billion collected in 2016.
The tax administrator explained that taxes constituted 51 per cent of the revenue collected during the year and that levies and fees accounted for the balance.
Ahmed, who linked the inability of the revenue agency to meet its revenue target to certain government policies which mitigated taxpayers’ burden, assured that appropriate measures were being put in place to ensure that this year’s target was met.
Specifically, he identified staff truancy, shortage of manpower and incomplete automation of tax payment in revenue generating agencies as major challenges of revenue collection in the state, adding that Service will soon complete the recruitment of new staff to boost the agency’s revenue collection capacity.
He clarified: “Once the recruitment is completed, we will deploy them to the field, to boost our revenue collection instead of using money agents who are sometimes dubious. We will give our staff target, equip them with Point of Sales (PoS) and tricycle to penetrate local markets and directly collect revenue for the state.
“Not only that, we will also ensure full automation of revenue collection in all the 68 revenue generating agencies in the state”, the KDIRS boss added.
He commended tax payers in the state for their support to the government to ensure that revenue was raised for development.
In his remarks during the media briefing, the Service’s Legal Adviser, Mr Francis Kozah, reminded tax payers of the existing tax law in the state, adding that the Service would prosecute defaulters in accordance with the law.
He disclosed that the revenue agency recorded 25 criminal cases relating to tax payments last year while 50 cases of tax default were filed out of which 35 were at various level of prosecution.
