The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has generated N12.66 billion in tax revenue about a month after it commenced substitution of accounts of recalcitrant billionaire taxpayers.

Executive Chairman of FIRS, Tunde Fowler, disclosed this over the weekend when he received the new Minister of Finance, Hajiya Zainab Ahmed, at the FIRS headquarters in Abuja, a statement from FIRS said.

Fowler told the minister that about a month ago FIRS commenced substitution of the bank accounts of high net worth billionaire tax defaulters, adding that the initiative pooled about N12.66bn into government coffers.

“FIRS wrote to all commercial banks in May 2018, requesting for a list of companies, partnerships and enterprises with a banking turnover of N1bn and above. This activity is aimed at ascertaining those companies that are compliant with the tax laws and those that are not. So far, non-compliant organisations have paid about N12.66bn” he said.

He also told the minister that the service realised N2.983bn from payment on demand notices on property owners who were being assessed based on their turnover and that 653 of 2, 672 of such non-filers had starting filing now.

The chairman also said FIRS had through enforcements collected a total of N47.5bn from 2016 till date and $32.8m, £5.9, netted N225bn from audit and had collected more than N1tn above its January to August collection last year (2017).

He said FIRS’ collection of N4.03tn in 2017 had 62.25 per cent as non-oil, while oil is just 37.75 per cent. It was 64.99 per cent in favour of non-oil in 2016 and 35.01 per cent for oil. In 2018, the FIRS has done 54.56 per cent for non-oil and 45.44 per cent for oil receipts.

Fowler added that Value Added Tax (VAT) receipt was on a steady increase. “So far in 2018, the FIRS has collected N773.49bn in eight months, surpassing that of 2015 (N767.33bn), and is set to surpass 2016 (N828.19bn), and 2017 (972.30bn) with four more collection months left in the year.

“e-stamp duties collection is on a steady increase. So far in 2018, the FIRS has collected N10.10bn in eight months. The above collected this year has already surpassed that of 2017 (N10.9bn), 2016 (N5.6bn), and 2015 (N7.1bn),” Fowler said.

He stressed that FIRS would continue to implement initiatives that would drive compliance and generate revenue by continuous taxpayer enlightenment, implementation of the Auto VAT Collect in other sectors of the economy, simplification of the tax processes; especially for small taxpayers, strengthening collaborations with other agencies such as Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), state Boards of Internal Revenue, Ministry of Trade and Investment and the Nigeria Customs Service.

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