BudgIT, a leading civic-tech organisation promoting transparency, accountability, and effective service delivery in Nigeria, has reported that Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government remitted a total of N7.04 billion in Value Added Tax (VAT) to the Federal Inland Revenue Service in October and November 2024.
The data on the VAT remittances from the civil-tech organisation’s accountability platform, GovSpend, showed that the MDAs remitted N4.13 billion in October and N2.91 billion in November, bringing the remittances in the two months to a total sum of N7,038,301,823.65.
According to the platform, in October and November VAT remittances from the Federal Ministry of Works on contracts for construction were very high, including N24.98 million by Ultrateam Projects Design & Construction Ltd. and N18.79 million by Bkem Consults Ltd.
In November last year, the report indicated that VAT payments included N97.73 million from Gillan Construction Limited and N46.67 million from Centrebeam Construction Ltd based on contracts awarded to the entities.
Despite the micro and macroeconomic whirlwinds in the nation’s economic landscape largely associated with the fuel subsidy removal, surging inflation and foreign exchange (FX) volatility over the past months, which have devalued real incomes of Nigerians, the VAT collections had been increasing based on adoption of technologies in the collection process by the FIRS.
The VAT is a 7.5% multi-stage tax consumption tax paid by consumers on goods and services and usually borne by the final consumer.
The FIRS has over the past years been boosting its revenue generation capacity through sundry initiatives, particularly through capacity-building of its workforce on emerging developments in tax administration, huge investments in new technologies and solutions, and collaboration with development partners.
The current chairman of the federal revenue agency, Dr. Zacch Adedeji, had in 2024 spoken about his team’s efforts to boost federally collectible revenues, including the widening the scope of VAT collection to include non-resident suppliers like Google and Amazon.
The tax administrator clarified: “What we are doing at the FIRS is to look at issues of policy. We now collect tax from non-resident resource suppliers like Google, and Amazon.”
