The Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Mr Tunde Fowler, has said that the Service, in collaboration with other stakeholders like the Nigeria Police Force, will this year go after wealthy tax defaulters.
Fowler said this on Thursday in Abuja when
the Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, paid a courtesy
visit to the Revenue House.
A statement from the FIRS on Thursday
said Fowler informed the police boss that already the service had
realised the sum of N23bn based on a closer look at the books of 45,000
tax debtors.
He said each of the 45,000 tax debtors had over N100m as turnover in their accounts.
The Service, he said, would be going after another set of over 40, 000 millionaire tax defaulters in 2019.
He requested the Nigeria Police to assist the Service to bring the tax defaulters to pay their taxes.
He
said, “We looked at businesses, partnerships of any activity that has
banking turnover between N100m and N999m. We have done a review of this
group of businesses.
“We have about seven more banks that we are still waiting for the return from and to review their information.
“So
far, we have 45,361 that have TIN and are making payments. We have
40,611 that have TIN, that made tax payment and, and we have 44,504 that
have no TIN and no pay.
“So, when you look at it from a
glance, we have close to 75,000 in this group that are still not
taxpayers and we have said the payment of tax is not only for the civil
servants. it’s for all Nigerians.
“So, the millionaires and the billionaires will pay tax on behalf of what is due to the national coffers.”
Fowler
commended the Nigerian Police Force for its support and collaboration
over the years, which he said, had helped FIRS to achieve its target and
requested for more support to enable it to recover taxes due to rich
tax evaders in 2019.
“Let me put on record that the Nigeria
Police Force has been extremely helpful to FIRS. Without the Police, I
doubt that the Service would have been able to achieve what we have
achieved.
“2018 was a successful year. The FIRS collected a total
of N5.32tn of tax revenue. This is the highest revenue collection in
the history of FIRS.”
Adamu said that the Police would continue
to support the FIRS because the job of revenue generation was critical
to the survival of the nation.
“We feel that the work you do is
one of the most important for the survival of the country. And you need
to be supported from all angles so that you can achieve what you want to
achieve to the benefit of every Nigerian.
“We will continue to
work with you to improve security so that people would do their
businesses here, make profits and pay their taxes.
“We believe
that with the new management team of the Nigeria Police Force, which is
adopting community policing, we would be able to improve security.”
Source:- Punchng
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