The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has expressed its readiness to boost its tax revenue collection by 57% to N19.4 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year.
A news report from Bloomberg indicated that the federal tax agency hoped to increase its oil revenues to N9.96 trillion and the non-oil tax revenue component to N9.45 trillion.
To achieve this, the FIRS plans to enhance efficiency and tax compliance by restructuring its organizational framework to prioritize taxpayers and implementing additional automation measures for tax collection, as outlined in the document.
The news report further disclosed that the Service also planned to carry out internal reallocation from oil to non-oil “given that the budget oil revenue for 2024 was increased by 214% compared to 2023 actual, while non-oil was increased by only 3%.”
The FIRS’ target for the fiscal year is expected to be achieved based on the current reforms by the government aimed at increasing revenue collection by various revenue agencies, ministries and parastatals.
To achieve the fiscal objective, President Tinubu last July set up the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms and appointed Mr. Taiwo Oyedele as the chairman of the committee.
The committee’s mandate was to review the country’s fiscal policies, tax laws, and regulations, and streamline tax collection and it had the objective of achieving a tax-to-GDP ratio of 18% in the next three years, among others.
In line with its mandate, the Committee had in October 2023 produced its Quick-win report which President Tinubu has ordered the implementation across MDAs.
Nigeria’s current tax-to-GDP ratio is 10.86%, which falls below the average for Africa.
