The Federal Inland Revenue Service has said it plans to generate a total of N5.6tn from taxes this year.
The Acting Executive Chairman, FIRS, Mr. Kabir Mashi, said at a stakeholders’ workshop to review the redesigned tax return forms in Lagos on Monday that the set target would be an increase of 12 per cent from N5tn recorded in 2012.
This year’s target, according to Mashi, if realised, will help to support the Federal Government’s developmental objectives.
The FIRS boss, who was represented by the Director, Non-Tax, FIRS, Mrs. Chiaka Okoye, said in the past, FIRS was faced with challenges that ranged from tax leakages to inefficiencies in tax service delivery process, global challenge of Information Communication Technology penetration, low level of public awareness, among others.
He said, “The challenges are so numerous to the extent that tax compliance was not only affected badly, but the integrity of the entire tax administration system was almost lost. FIRS had to deal with these challenges one after the other to guarantee a sustainable level of revenue for government to enable her to provide essential public service.
“One of the sure ways to address these challenges was partly through automation, capacity building and awareness creation. We started this by initiating the Project FACT. The project, a bank payment solution, was implemented to secure government revenue from all sources of leakages.”
He added that the re-engineering efforts translated into defining requirements to select an off-the-shelf tax administration solution.
Mashi said, “A procurement process through the adoption of international competitive bidding process was initiated and a Standard Integrated Government Tax Administration Solution was selected and approved by the Federal Executive Council.”
According to him, FIRS is on the verge of implementing the ITAS.
“The workshop is basically to get input from stakeholders and taxpayers on the ITAS,” he added.