The Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Mr. Mohammed Nami, said on Tuesday that the agency was targeting N5.9trn revenue this year.
Mani stated this before members of the Senate Committee on Finance. The panel was reviewing the performance of the FIRS 2020 revenue projection of N5.076trn out of which it was able to realise N4.950trn, representing 98 per cent.
He told the panel that the cost of collection being 4 per cent, achieved N130.45bn against a budget of N186.76bn.
The FIRS Chairman said the agency was proposing a total revenue collection of N5.9 trn representing an increase of 16.22 per cent above 2020 budget of N5.076 trn.
He said the cost of collection was projected at N289.25bn at 7 per cent to take care of the increasing cost of operation and planned expansion of operation for new sources of revenue.
He further said that the agency would not be recruiting any staff in 2021 as there were not enough accommodation yet even for existing staff in the face of COVID-19.
He said, “We need to observe social distancing rules and presently some of the staff are working remotely from home.”
Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Solomon Adeola, said the Senate would consider the possibility of approving an increase in the cost of collection that accrue to FIRS from its operation from its present approved 4 per cent.
He said whatever was recommended by his committee would be presented for approval by the Senate in plenary as the committee cannot unilaterally approved the proposed 7 per cent proposed by the agency.
Adeola said that FIRS should look at other alternative of revenue generation for its operations from other areas of revenue beyond a blanket increase of cost of collection for its operations.
He said his panel was looking at fashioning out ways the agency could generate additional revenue for the Federal and state governments.
He said, “As a way of increasing revenue of the government, our committee is to begin a full blown investigation of all 467 revenue generating agencies of the Federal Government.
“This is to ascertain compliance with remittances into the consolidated revenue account of the government as well as remittances of the 1 per cent Stamp Duty by all agencies on contracts they awarded.
“For government to execute projects and provide services, revenue from the oil sector is now grossly insufficient,” he added.
