Nigeria Realises 1.5 Trln Naira From Tax In Q1 2019 ~ FIRS Chief

Nigeria generated 1.5 trillion naira income from taxes in the first quarter of the year, the Federal Inland Revenue Service ((FIRS) has disclosed.

Babatunde Fowler, chairman of FIRS said the amount included revenue from non-oil taxes that were 11 percent higher than what the agency realised from that sector in Q1 of 2018.
“In the first quarter (of 2019), what I will say is that in the non-oil sector, we generated 11 percent higher than what we generated in 2018.
“Basically, we have generated about N1.5 trillion,” Fowler said.
The service had generated 1.17 trillion naira in the corresponding period of last year, indicating 28 percent less than this year's figure.
Also, the amount generated in the first quarter represents about 18.7 percent of the FIRS’s total revenue target of 8 trillion naira for 2019.
Fowler said the target, described by economy watchers as quite ambitious, was realistic with the cooperation of taxpayers, among other factors.
“It is quite realistic as long as we have the cooperation of taxpayers in addition to deployment of technology.
“We have already started the enforcement of over 50,000 accounts that have banking turnover of 100 billion and above that have not filed their returns.”
The FIRS boss also spoke of plans by the agency to surpass the over N1 trillion it realised from Valued Added Tax (VAT) in 2018.
“We will get more people into the tax net and deploy more technology.
“We have what we call Auto VAT Collect, and that basically assists taxpayers at the point of transaction, and the VAT portion is sent straight into the federation account.
“So, we know that there is more room for growth in the VAT sector,” he explained.