Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the United Kingdom’s His Royal Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the purposes of improved collaboration on capacity building for their manpower resource.
Speaking during the MoU signing event in London, the Executive Chairman of the FIRS, Mr. Muhammad Nami, explained that the sealing of the pact was in line with two planks of his management-designed cardinal goals for the Service, namely building a data-centric tax authority and improving the Service’s collaboration and stakeholder relations.
He expressed optimism that the collaborative relationship between the Service and HMRC will help the agencies’ officers with the skills of the 21st century tax man.
The tax administrator said: “Data is the new oil. Its collection, interpretation and consequent application for tax purposes has become crucial if the Service must be ahead of the taxpayer in the times we are in.
“With increased collaboration between the Service and tax authorities the world over—which is one of the cardinal pillars of this current management—meticulous and purposeful management, as well as strategic interpretation of the information we exchange between each other has become a fundamental element of inter-tax-authority relations.
“These, among several others, form the major areas where we would be collaborating on capacity building with the HMRC. We must be a step ahead”, Nami added.
The FIRS boss, who is also the President of the Commonwealth Association of Tax Administrators (CATA), further clarified that with the MoU, officers of the Service would be better equipped to improve tax revenue collection and in turn provide government with the much needed resources to cater for Nigerians.
Commenting further on the collaboration, David Yellowly, Head of Capacity Building at the HMRC stressed that “the MoU between the Nigerian and UK revenue authorities would see the two countries collaborating on Capacity Building, particularly on issues surrounding Country-by-Country Reporting Standards, Transfer Pricing, Exchange of Information, Data, and Audit in the Oil and Gas industry.”
The signing of the MoU was witnessed by some members of the FIRS’ Board and management as well as Director at HMRC, Jon Sherman, who signed on behalf of the agency, and other members of the HMRC Executive Committee.
It would be recalled that in recent times, the FIRS’ Executive Chairman has been strengthening the revenue agency’s collaboration with other tax authorities in line with his reform drives towards improving stakeholder relations for improved tax administration.
For instance, in February this year, the FIRS signed an MoU with the Lagos State Inland Revenue Service (LIRS) for collaboration on Joint Tax Audit, Exchange of Information and Capacity Building.
Photo Caption
L-R: Director at the HMRC, Jon Sherman, and the FIRS’ Executive Chairman, Muhammad Nami, shortly after the signing of the MoU on capacity building in London, United Kingdom, on Thursday, March 16, 2023
