The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has proposed a revenue target of N4.957 trillion for 2016.
Its Executive Chairman, Mr Tunde Fowler, announced the projection at the opening ceremony of the FIRS 2016 Corporate Strategy Retreat tiled: “Optimising non-oil tax revenue collection through compliance and enforcement’’ in Abuja on Tuesday.
Fowler said that the target would be largely dependent on non-oil collection, adding that value added tax would account for N2 trillion, representing 40.35 per cent of the total target.
He added that corporate income tax was expected to account for N1.877 trillion, representing 37.87 per cent of the target.
The chairman said that the two taxes would provide almost 80 per cent of service collection in 2016.
He said that the theme for the retreat was driven by the service experience in 2015 when it was only able to collect N3.743 trillion as against the target of N4.572 trillion.
“We have proposed a revenue target of N4.957 trillion for 2016. It is realisable taking all factors into consideration. We have been able to add more than 354,000 new corporate tax payers in less than 100 days.
When we say we added them, it means they have never paid tax before; they never paid VAT, never paid corporate income tax and with the existing 500,000 will make 854,000 accounts.
We believe that we will be able to make it up to a million before March 31. If everyone pays what is due, I believe that it will significantly increase our revenue,’’ Fowler said.
He said that the service had written to all state governors to partner with it to ensure that VAT was paid monthly and timely.
He said that the states were already responding even though the letter was sent out less than 10 days ago.
“I am happy to say that the Ogun State Government, through the governor, was the first state to respond to our letter.
We have to remember that what we collect is shared among the Federal Government, states and local governments so it is only fair that all states pay what is due to the government to be shared thereafter.
Fowler said that the service had introduced a new tax identification number and called on the federal engagement and enlightenment tax teams to create more awareness among the people.
He said the service was reaching out the people through the media, saying that it was using the major languages to reach them.
He warned agencies deducting tax from their employees and not remitting it to desist from the act or face the music.
“Very soon, we are going to introduce what we call VAT watch, every organisation will clearly displace a certificate showing that they registered for VAT and they are committed to collect VAT and remit VAT.
“We will be running spot checks on people who have paid VAT and we will cross-check our system to find out if that VAT has been remitted and if not the laws will handle such situations,’’ he said.
The retreat is an annual event at the beginning of each year to enable the management of FIRS to identify and map out strategies to achieve its corporate goals and revenue targets.
(NAN)
