The acting Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr. Sunday Ogungbesan, yesterday disclosed that the service had generated a whopping N1.842 trillion from taxes into the federation account in the first half of the year.

Ogungbesan made this disclosure yesterday while briefing the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, on the performance of the agency in the last six months.He was accompanied to the meeting by members of the senior management team of the agency.

However, he disclosed that the figure was a far cry from what is accruable into the nation’s treasury, observing that the numerous social, political and economic challenges confronting the nation have been impeding the flow of revenues into the federation account.

Giving a breakdown of the income, Odugbesan said the agency realized N697 billion as Petroleum Profit Tax; N778 billion as the Company Income Tax and N376 billion as Value Added Tax (VAT).

According to him, the agency was still expecting between N12 billion and N15 billion as import VAT from the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), adding that the annual target of FIRS in the oil and gas sector is N1.4 trillion with additional N123.74 billion as its monthly target.

Furthermore, the FIRS boss said whereas N150 billion was collected from the oil sector in January and February, the figure went down to N93 billion in March.

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