The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), has said that only 41 million taxpayers are captured in the nation’s tax net so far in a population of over 200 million citizens.
The Chairman of the federal revenue agency, Mr. Muhammad Nami, disclosed this at the ‘Public Presentation and Breakdown of the Highlights of the 2022 Appropriation Bill’ in Abuja
Nami, expressed serious concern that in spite of the 41 million taxpayers captured in its taxpayers database Nigeria earnings from Personal Income Taxes (PIT) remained lower than what its counterparts across Africa generate yearly from the tax source.
He expatiated: “If you also compare that with South Africa; where they have a total population of about 60 million people; with just 4 million taxpayers; the total personal income tax paid in South Africa last year was about N13 trillion. You can now see that these things are not adding up.
“The number of billionaires in Lagos alone is more than the number of billionaires in the whole of South Africa; but yet what we generated as PIT by Lagos State was low.
“So if we don’t pay these taxes, there is no way the government will be able to provide the social amenities required; the critical infrastructure required for the wellbeing of the country”, the FIRS boss added.
He further explained that the agency’s total tax collections up to September 30, which have not been fully reconciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) stood at about N4.2 trillion.
Of this amount, the seasoned tax administrator said oil-related taxes accounted for only 22 per cent which is N950 billion while the non-oil taxes generated totalled about N3.3 trillion.
The FIRS boss said: “People are not willing to pay even when they are appointed as an agent of collection; whatever they have collected they find it difficult to remit.
“We assume that we are a rich country, I don’t think that is correct, we only have the potential to be rich; because we have a very huge population of about 200 million.
“If you look at it from the rate of taxes paid in Saudi Arabia with a population of 10 million people; the VAT rate is as high as 15 percent and what we have in Nigeria is just 7.5 per cent”, Nami clarified.
