The Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zaccheus Adedeji, on Wednesday, explained the need for the change of the FIRS to the Nigeria Revenue Service.
Mr Adedeji, while appearing before the House of
Representatives Committee on Finance, explained that the current name does not
reflect the true function of the agency, and limits its power to carry out
functions.
It would be recalled that President Bola Tinubu sent four
bills on tax reform to the National Assembly for passage.
One of the bills, the Nigeria Revenue Service Act repeals
the FIRS Act, and also makes a name change.
The other bills are the Tax Administration Bill, the Nigeria
Revenue Service Establishment Bill, and the Joint Revenue Board Establishment
Bill.
Mr Adedeji explained that the “federal” and “inland” in the
current name limit the powers of the commission.
In case of “federal”, he stated that the agency currently
collects money for federal, states and local governments with the VAT
collection.
He noted that the agency equally collects funds outside the
shores of Nigeria from Amazon, Google and others, hence, the agency cannot be
called “inland”.
“Today, we are called the Federal Inland Revenue Service as
though we only collect revenue for the federal government or within Nigeria.
“That was the case when the service was established, but
today, one of the revenues we collect is Value Added Tax (VAT), and 85 per cent
of this VAT goes to the states. Therefore, our name no longer accurately
reflects our operations,” he said.
Mr Adedeji added, “Today, we collect online charges for
Jumia, Google, and others. As the Nigeria Revenue Service, we can collect any
revenue, whether from within Nigeria or outside.”
Many of the lawmakers expressed concerns over the
implication of the bills, particularly the possibility of making some revenue
collecting agency redundant.
The FIRS boss assured that it won’t lead to that.
He added that the new bills did not envisage merger of
agencies or introduction of new taxes.
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