The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is set to surpass its N7 Trillion tax collection target by the end of 2022.
A source at the FIRS told reporters that the resolve to exceed the target the Federal Government will set for the Service “is to compensate for the FGN’s decision to appoint the FIRS as the Principal Tax Revenue Collection Agency”.
The FIRS has the Federal Government’s approval to collaborate with Federal Law Enforcement agencies and Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and as such, new powers have been vested in the FIRS.
The powers of the FIRS now includes: sanctioning non-compliant taxpayers refusing access to IT systems for which the FIRS may deploy both Proprietary and Third-Party Tech Applications to collect information from taxpayers.
They are also empowered to assess Non-Resident Firms to tax on Fair and Reasonable Turnover Tax Basis, on Turnover earned from providing Digital Services to Nigerian customers.
Furthermore, the FIRS can now Introduce Turnover Tax on Fair & Reasonable Percentages of Profits earned from providing Digital Services to Nigerian customers.
The FIRS collected N6.405 trillion tax revenue in 2021 and it now expects the Federal Government to increase the target to N7 trillion or more.
“We are given a target, we don’t set targets for ourselves, there is a national tax collection target that is given to us.
“We would now set our target inhouse to say that the Federal Government has said go and collect N7 trillion, we would now say okay, inhouse we want to collect N10 Trillion we want to surpass government’s target.
“That is the energizer to the Service that makes us more or less beat our target most times,” the source said.
