Federal Internal Revenue Service (FIRS) Generates N1.85trn in 6months

Insecurity, policy somersault, business uncertainty, contradictory legislation, undue political interference, among others, have been attributed as factors militating against revenue generation in the non-oil sector of the Nigerian economy.

This comes as the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) revealed that over N1.85 trillion was generated as tax between January and June this year.

Sunday Odugbesan, acting chairman, FIRS, made the disclosure, yesterday, when he led management of the service to the Senate leadership in Abuja.

Giving a summary of revenue performance in the last six months, Odugbesan noted that while N697 billion was collected as Petroleum Profit Tax in the first six months of 2015, the annual tax target in the oil sector in 2015 was N1.4 trillion.

On the non-oil component, Odugbesan said N778 billion was received as Company Income Tax and N376 billion as Value Added Tax (VAT). This figure, he said, however excludes import VAT of between N12 billion and N15 billion monthly, which would be provided by the Nigeria Customs Service.

He rated the achievement of tax collection in the oil sector so far at 94 percent and 80 percent for the non- oil sector in the period under review, and described the Petroleum Profit Tax generated in March this year, which amounted to N50 billion, as the worst performance from the oil industry in the last 15 years.

According to him, what is within the purview of the agency is to intervene to shore up the collection from non-oil sector.

“We have not actually got the total figures for June yet, and JP Morgan that is assisting the Federal Government to collect foreign components of our collection will still be giving us a report even a week after the closure of the month,” he said.

The FIRS boss submitted that in its attempt to finance the 2015 budget, occasioned by drop in crude oil prices in the international market, the immediate past administration of Goodluck Jonathan introduced surcharges on private jet owners.

He said there were also plans to charge each passenger flying the Business Class and First Class N15,000, but that had not been implemented, pointing out that a letter had already been written to the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to this effect.

“We also looked at those who own private jets and thought that you are enjoying facilities or assets most Nigerians do not have privilege to enjoy. We will levy something we call surcharge on you. And of course, Customs was to introduce others like furniture surcharge, mansion surcharge, various kind of surcharges.

“But regrettably, we have not been able to administer all these. We have challenges. We raised assessment on about 130 private jet owners because we were made to understand we have up to that number. One particular company, we raised about N100 million on them.

“It was at the meeting we realised that there are a lot of them who have approval to run platform at the airport; they don’t own any jet. Flight will come in and will go out. But in the records, it says that they have jets. So, we still have a lot of challenges to implement it,” he said.

Responding, Senate president, Bukola Saraki, advocated for greater focus on tax collection to boost the nation’s revenue in view of the dwindling revenue from oil, saying that an efficient tax collection system in the country was needed for the economic revival of the nation.

The Senate president said it was time to evolve a broad based system of tax administration that will be a more stable and reliable source of revenue, “as it does not depend on any external factor to achieve,” and therefore tasked the FIRS to come up with proposed laws and recommendations that could help to boost its operations in the area of adequate and efficient tax collection.

OWEDE GBAJILEKE, Abuja