UN sec-gen names FIRS boss as member tax matters committee

Executive chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS),

UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guteres, who inaugurated the committee, has named Fowler alongside 24 other members spread worldwide.

The UN Sec Gen also revealed that the committee will operate for four years and the commencement of its activities will be heralded by an inauguration ceremony in Geneva on October 1, 2017.

Fowler’s appointment was conveyed to the FIRS by Bolaji Akinremi, minister plenipotentiary of Nigeria permanent mission in New York.

Akinremi, in a mail to the FIRS, said: “I have great joy to inform you that the UN secretary-general, H.E Antonio Guteress, has appointed Mr. Babatunde Fowler as one of the 25 members of the prestigious international experts committee on tax matters for a four-year tenure to commence at the inauguration ceremony in Geneva on 1 October 2017.

“In addition to the notification of the appointment by the SG to the UN economic council already placed on the website of the council, individual letters of appointment would be addressed to the appointee and the appointee is to formally accept the nomination through a letter of acceptance addressed to the UNSG through the Nigeria permanent mission, New York.”

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The appointment is coming as Fowler doubles as the chairman of the African Tax Administration Forum, (ATAF) and the Joint Tax Board (JTB).

Fowler made his mark as the super tax man in Lagos under the administration of Babatunde Raji Fashola as the chairman Lagos Internal Revenue Service (LIRS).

The FIRS recently announced it generated a sum of N2.11 trillion as revenue from January to July 2017, a sharp increase from the N3.303 trillion it realised in the whole of 2016.