Tax agency sets N4.9tn revenue target to fund budget

ayodele johnson

February 3, 2016 7:11 AM

There is a huge amount of seriousness in the way government agencies have conducted themselves under the Buhari government

FIRS boss, Babatunde Fowler

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has stated its ambition to generate N4.9tn to be used to fund the Federal Government’s budget of the 2016 fiscal period.

He mentioned this at the opening session of the organisation’s 2016 open strategy retreat held in Abuja.

The retreat, attended by FIRS directors and partners, had the theme ‘Optimising non-oil tax revenue collection through compliance and enforcement’.

The chairman said the service would adopt innovative ways to achieve its target, noting that more attention would be given to improving non-oil revenue through effective compliance and enforcement activities.

READ: Fowler goes after 325K companies and persons over tax evasion

According to him, N2tn or 40.35 per cent of the total would be generated from Value Added Tax.

Fowler said, “In 2016, we do not have the luxury of not meeting our targets, especially as the government is looking to non-oil taxes to bridge the revenue gap. In this regard, we have proposed a revenue target of N4.957tn for 2016. This target is largely dependent on non-oil collections and in particular, VAT will account for N2tn and CIT is expected to account for N1.87tn".

There is a huge amount of seriousness in the way government agencies have conducted themselves under the Buhari government which seems to be built on the idea of productivity.

ayodele johnson