The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler on Monday hinted that country’s taxpayer roll would soon rise to 33 million.
Fowler, who is also the Chairman of Joint Tax Board (JTB) made this disclosure at the opening session of the 142nd meeting of the JTB on Monday in Bauchi.
According to him, the latest figures derived from the ongoing database consolidation project being implemented by the JTB in collaboration with the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS).
The tax administrator explained that having this consolidated database, which by all assessment parameters remained credible, would create opportunities for the tax administrator at all levels for computational and tax returns purposes, amongst others.
The FIRS boss explained: “As we build on this data, we shall also be ensuring that the technological infrastructure that will facilitate the seamless exchange of data across levels of competent authorities are present.
“This entails significant investment in Information Technology via the provision of required infrastructure, equipment and as capacity building for personnel that will drive the processes,” he added.
Fowler expressed optimism that such investment in infrastructure would foster efficiency in taxpayer management and also align with the country being a signatory to the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement (MCAA), which will trigger the Automatic Exchange of Information among Treaty Partners and two other initiatives of the Federal Government, namely the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS), and the Voluntary Offshore Assets Regularization Scheme (VOARS).
The JTB Chairman Fowler also commended the Bauchi State Government for its sundry efforts being made to improve the state’s tax administration efficiency , including the introduction of payment of taxes through Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) and through its website.
Specifically, he noted that based on the innovations introduced by the Governor Mohammed Abubakar’s administration, the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) had risen from about N4 billion to over N7 billion monthly.
Fowler said: “You may wish to note that Bauchi State is actually one of the success stories when matters of IGR are discussed, both at the regional and at the national levels. Your Excellency may wish to note a few of the impressive statistics on IGR collection of Bauchi State.
“Computation of IGR collection for Bauchi State for the nine-month period January to September 2018 hit N7.04 billion. This figure has already outperformed the full year 2017 IGR figure of N4.36 billion with a percentage margin of 61.2%”, the FIRS Chairman added.
