The Federal Government through the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) on Thursday said South West Geopolitical Zone is the largest contributor to total IGR collection at the sub-national level for the year 2018.
Tunde Fowler, chairman, FIRS, said this in Lagos at the South-West Regional Flag-Off Ceremony of the new National Taxpayers Identification Number (TIN) Registration System and Consolidated Taxpayers Database.
The new national TIN registration system was officially flagged off on July 1, 2019 by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Fowler, who also is the Chairman of the Joint Tax Board (JTB), said the new system while improving the efficiency and output of the entire tax administration process, was meant to provide a variety of convenience to both the taxpayers and the tax administrator. He noted that the new system guarantees that each taxpayer’s details are readily available to them at their fingertips all day/everywhere.
According to him, the system possesses the capability to integrate with relevant agencies and leverage on already captured data, deploy analytics to discover underlying and correlating trends and patterns that could lead to increased Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for all tiers of government.
These agencies include the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS), Nigeria Identity Management Commission (NIMC) and Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
“This would significantly reduce the burden of manual taxpayer information management and by extension grossly crash the cost of collection”.
“The system is designed in such a manner that each taxpayer is assigned a unique and universal Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) and it is now possible for any taxpayer to view, retrieve or update his/her tax profile from anywhere 24/7,” said the JTB boss.
The new TIN Registration System and its consolidated database of individual and corporate taxpayers’ have been designed to form the foundation upon which the nation’s automated tax administration system is built.
Babatunde Sanwo-Olu, executive governor of Lagos state, who graced the occasion as the Chief host, unveiled the new TIN certificate.
Babatunde Sanwo-Olu, explained that the new JTB national TIN registration system was a welcome addition to the state of reform towards taking identity management and tax administration in Nigeria to the next level.
According to him, “it is not a surprise that many states including Lagos have tried to address tax issues through one scheme or the other. The reality however is that no matter how sophisticated cutting edges these things are is really sub-optimal and lacks cross boarder acceptability.”
“It is generally agreed that tax revenue has always underperformed its potentials which is evident in our tax to GDP ratio which is one of the lowest in the world at about 7%,” Sanwo-Olu added, hence there is still a lot of room for improvement and he believes the new initiative being flagged off will go a long way towards bridging the deficit by capturing effective eligible tax payers within the tax net.
According to stakeholders and tax experts, improved tax revenue is said to help the government lessen its overdependence on crude oil proceeds which is highly volatile, “with improved tax compliance in the country, citizens can hold accountable the government and demand better living standards where necessary,” Sanwo-Olu added.
In his opening remarks, Oseni Elamah, executive secretary, JTB, said the new system is a web-based solution that offers access to authorized users to initiate TIN request from the comfort of their homes/offices real-time online, verify their tax status and print their TIN certificate.
“It is a transparent system that assures timely and accurate collection and recording of basic identification data. It also permits the tax administrator to understand its taxpayer base for effective revenue projections and other planning activities”, Elamah said.
By leveraging on existing data from relevant identity management agencies, he said the new System reduces the burden of multiple registration of taxpayers as well as promoting the ease of doing business and paying taxes.
Nigeria has in the last four years achieved the following: expansion of the tax base from 10 million to 20 million taxpayers with the potential for an increase of up to 45 million before the end of the third quarter of 2019; growth in the IGR of States by 46.11% from N800.02 billion in 2016 to N1.16 trillion in 2018; growth in FIRS collections by 53.81 percent from N3.30 trillion in 2016 to N5.32 trillion in 2018; with the 2018 total collection of N5.32 trillion being the highest collection ever in the history of FIRS, while Non-Oil Revenue, with a collection of N2.85 trillion accounted for 54% of total revenue collection; and the payment by the Federal Government of all outstanding PAYE tax liabilities owed by Federal MDAs to States from 2002 to 2016, totalling N135.8 billion; with a total of N33.13 billion paid to the States in the South-West Geopolitical Zone.
HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE & DAVID IBIDAPO
