Mr. Tunde Fowler, Executive Chairman, FIRS, who made the announcement in Lagos on Monday at a retreat: ‘Parliamentary Support for Effective Taxation of the Digital Economy’, said it was targeting N8 trillion in 2019.
The revenue generation of the FIRS is significant as it was at a period when oil prices averaged $70 per barrel. Oil price was at an average of $100 to $120 per barrel between 2010 and 2013.
“While we have been steadily increasing revenue collection over the years, our cost of collection has actually been going down.
“The Service has been making tremendous efforts in also increasing the amount of non-oil revenue it collects. Non-oil collection contributed 64.99 percent in 2016, in 2017 it contributed 62.25 percent and in 2018 it contributed 53.62 percent. This represents the government’s focus on increasing non-oil sources of revenue and the diversification of the Nigerian economy,’’ he said.
Fowler reiterated the fact that only companies that made a profit are obliged to pay taxes.
According to him, if a company is situated in Nigeria, it is only fair that it pays its fair share of tax for the benefit of all Nigerians.
The Executive Chairman also stated that various initiatives were implemented by the FIRS to enhance tax administration and make taxation as easy as possible.
The FIRS deployed ICT initiatives that enable a taxpayer to pay taxes from anywhere in the world, at any time.
“With the e-payment channel one can pay taxes with the click of a button and one can also download their receipts. Other e-Services are the e-Registration, e-Filing, -Stamp Duty and e-Tax Clearance Certificate.
“Taxpayers can now also choose the tax office where they would like to conduct their tax transactions. Before now, if one was registered with a particular tax office, one had to conduct all of their tax transactions in that office.
“However, to make it more convenient for the taxpayer, they can now choose which ever office they wish to conduct their transactions with,’’ he added.
He noted that Nigerian taxpayers are embracing the modern way of tax collection, introduced by the FIRS through the 6-e Solutions.
Fowler explained that the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) is being automated in key sectors to facilitate reduction in compliance cost in the long term.