THE Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has disclosed that it generated N10.1 trillion as revenue for the 2022 fiscal year. That was the highest revenue from any government owned enterprise (GOE) in history.
FIRS chairman, Muhammad Nami, made the disclosure on Monday in an interview with select journalists in his Abuja office.
News Point Nigeria reports that the target for the year was N10.4 trillion. The revenue generated was a little below the target for the agency by the federal government in 2022.
Mr Nami, however, explained that over N1.4 trillion was lost to federal government’s tax waivers for some agencies in the year under review.
The FIRS boss said the revenue agency would have surpassed the 2022 target if the waivers were collected and added into the federation account.
He, therefore, appealed to the federal, State and local governments to rightly apply the revenues being generated by the revenue agency to critical sectors impact on the generality of the people.
“We appeal to the three tiers of government to continue to apply the little revenues we generate judiciously to encourage taxpayers to pay more,” he stated.
Nami also called for tax harmonisation in Nigeria for more revenue generation and to curb tax evasion.
“If you operate multiple tax system, you will make it possible for taxpayers to dodge paying taxes.
“With a single tax authority, you are able to harmonise operations, tax issues and make it easy for tax payers to pay taxes,” Nami stated.
