Adedeji said such resolve would not necessarily lead to an increase in taxes or the introduction of new taxes as the President Bola Tinubu-led administration is determined to create a wholesome environment for businesses to flourish.

The FIRS chairman had said the agency under his leadership would, in the next three years, achieve an eight per cent rise in tax-to-GDP ratio to surpass Africa’s average of 16.5% without stifling investment or economic growth.

The plan had triggered muffled apprehensions among corporate entities that the decision could cause an increase in tax rates or the introduction of new ones.

Addressing representatives of top large tax-paying companies during a get-together at Four Points by Sheraton in Lagos on Wednesday, Adedeji said, “Our belief, understanding and vision as a revenue-generating agency is not to introduce any new tax as we only want to use data to improve compliance.”

In a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Dare Adekanmbi, on Thursday, he quoted the FIRS chairman as saying that the invited companies and those willing to carry out their tax obligations voluntarily have nothing to be afraid of.

“Our plan is simple. We want to grow tax revenue, and we only want to tax prosperity and not poverty.

“Therefore, it is not in our interest to kill the trees that bear the fruits. My first ‘love letter’ to you is to appreciate what you have done. So, you don’t have anything to be afraid of.

“We will not collect what is not due to us. But we don’t want anyone not to pay what is due to us. Fair engagement is our plan. Rest assured that the 18% tax-to-GDP target will not translate to an increase in taxes.

If you have been listening to Mr Taiwo Oyedele who is the chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, you will have known that part of the mandate of the committee is to reduce the number of taxes,” he said.

According to him, the purpose of the engagement with the companies is to factor their inputs into the strategic action plan being mapped out in order to address challenges hampering tax revenue collection.

He lauded the invited companies for their high sense of responsibility, urging them to continue to discharge their tax obligation diligently.

“I must also commend your commitment to upholding high tax compliance standards and responsible corporate citizenship, which sets you apart as the top taxpayers in Nigeria.

“This aligns perfectly with our vision of making taxation the pivot of national development through voluntary compliance. Your respective industries play a pivotal role in generating substantial tax revenue for the government and in shaping the economic and fiscal stability of the nation.

We are not unmindful of the challenges facing businesses in Nigeria with the ongoing reforms to improve economic performance. These are painful but necessary choices we must make as a nation to attain our full potential,” he said.

The chairman, while responding to some of the concerns raised by representatives of the companies, such as the multiplicity of taxes and duplication of tax oversight on corporate entities, promised to address the issues raised.

Some of the companies at the event included Nestlé Nigeria Plc, ExxonMobil, Shell, Guinness, Nigerian Breweries Plc, Flour Mills, Dangote Group, MTN, British American Tobacco company, First Bank, Access Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Zenith Bank Plc, KC Gaming Limited (Bet9ja), Airtel, Seplat, BUA Cement, Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas, NNPC Limited and others.

The award ceremony, which took place in South Africa late March, saw Dr. Alebiosu win the taxation category of the award, with over a thousand entries received for the preliminary stage of the award.

Awardees that won other categories alongside Dr. Alebiosu are the first African woman referee at the 2022 men’s World Cup, Salima Mukansanga; Lagos State Commissioner of Finance, Rabiu Olowo; Global President, Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, Joseph Owolabi and Broadcast Journalist and British Broadcasting Corporation’s Presenter, Nyasha Michelle.

The Forty Under 40 Africa Award identifies, honours, and celebrates a cross-section of the continent’s most influential and accomplished young business leaders under the age of forty from a wide range of industries. These individuals are committed to business growth, professional excellence, and community service, and have risen-up the ranks of their companies or industries at a relatively young age as a result of this.

Speaking during the event, the Director of the Award Ceremony, Richard Abbey Jnr, said that they organised the event not only to put a spotlight on young achievers but also to build a strong platform for them to share their voices and opportunities with the next generation of industry pacesetters. This would also help to build a positive attitude in young people to strive for excellence at a tender age.

“Year after year, we have seen outstanding individuals and trailblasers strive hard with dedication and perseverance by overcoming challenges and economic instability. These are the people we had honored,” Abbey added.

Dr. Alebiosu is a highly accomplished and versatile professional with a wealth of experience in accounting and taxation and presently works as a Manager at the Federal Inland Revenue Service, where she’s responsible for assessing and collecting tax revenues for the Federal Government. She has over 15 years of work experience, including over 10 years at the Federal Government Revenue Agency.

She has a strong academic background, having obtained a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Olabisi Onabanjo University, a master’s degree in finance from the University of Lagos, and a Master of Philosophy and Doctoral Degree in Accounting from Babcock University.

She is also a Fellow of both the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria.

Dr. Alebiosu expressed her joy as she received the award and thanked the FIRS for the opportunity to work with the agency.

She also pledged to remain committed to her work and strive for excellence in all that she does.

The Federal Government has, however, threatened to sanction those involved in the illegality, including the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation Limited, Central Bank of Nigeria and the Nigeria Customs Service, among other MDAs.

Investigations showed that some agencies issued employment letters to jobseekers, which were not accredited by the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation and the Federal Civil Service Commission, while others simply replaced retired or dead officials with friends and family members.

But the replacements were done without the approval of the OHCSF and the Federal Civil Service Commission.

some civil servants, who were engaged in employment racketeering, were caught in the Federal Ministry of Works.

It was also reported how the OHCSF uncovered over 1,500 civil servants with fake employment letters in a ministry.

Corroborating this, the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folasade Yemi-Esan, said her office had detected a total of 1,618 workers whose letters of employment were either fake or illegal in the Federal Civil Service.

This is despite the embargo placed on employment by the government.

In 2019, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation was reported to have employed many individuals without following the due recruitment process.

Many groups, including the Niger Delta Youth Consort of Nigeria, protested against the NNPC for excluding the region and southerners in the secret recruitment.

The National Coordinator of the NDYCN, Chuks Onuoha, described the practice as unacceptable, but the then NNPC spokesman, Kenny Obateru, denied the recruitment.

According to him, what the NNPC management did was to fill the vacancies with personnel who were already in the system and were qualified rather than recruiting fresh ones from outside the system.

But applicants, who got to the final stage of the screening process, accused the oil giant of substituting their names with favoured candidates.

“The NNPC replaced most of the EH positions under the guise of a hurriedly planned scheme codenamed Internal Open Resource where some people, who contracted third party staff members and did not meet the requisite experience and qualifications in the advertised EH vacancies, are being deployed through the backdoor in an unfortunate and disappointing bid to jettison the EH merit list,” the President, Transparency in Recruitment at Ministries, Departments and Agencies, Felix Sunday, had lamented then.

The current NNPC spokesman, Garba Deen Muhammad, asked one of our correspondents to send a message to him on WhatsApp three Fridays ago, but he had yet to respond to the message as of the time of filing this report.

Similarly, the Federal Inland Revenue Service was enmeshed in a recruitment scandal in 2021 after it emerged that it secretly engaged 2,000 workers, a development that put a strain on its budget.

The Nigerian Civil Service Union, which disclosed this in a petition to the FIRS Chairman, Muhammad Namu, in June 2021, also revealed that the agency was finding it difficult to pay salaries at some point after the secret engagement of the staff members within a period of 18 months.

It demanded an end to the re-engagement of retired directors and other categories of staff.

The media aide to the FIRS chairman, Tobi Wojuola, refused to respond to the allegations against the service when contacted.

Reacting to allegations of illegal recruitment, the Nigerian Customs Service spokesman, Timi Bomodi, insisted that there had been no backdoor recruitment in the service.

He said, “We advertise every recruitment in newspapers; there is no ministry and department of government in Nigeria that is as transparent in its recruitment process as the Nigeria Customs Service.

All the 774 local government areas are represented in our recruitment. Applicants are made to sit aptitude tests and are selected based on their competences. You don’t need to know anybody before you can be employed in the service.”

Also, the Central Bank of Nigeria was accused of recruiting 909 staff members within two years without advertising the vacancies. Although the Federal Character Commission investigated the allegation, nothing has been heard about the case.

Nami who received a delegation of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) led by Chris Isiguzo, the National President, in his office, in Abuja, said their proposed road infrastructure tax would provide the government with adequate funding for road construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance.

In the statement released by the FIRS’ chairman’s media aide Johannes Wojuola, it was also stated that the scheme would also provide the needed security for roads in the country.

He said “The only way to make the informal sector contribute to building a modern society is by making them pay when they use the roads. That is why we are proposing that government should consider introducing Road Infrastructure Tax in Nigeria. In many jurisdictions, road users pay for the use of road infrastructure as such it shouldn’t be seen as an additional burden on our citizens because it has the potential of making life better for all of us. Without the tax that you pay, governments at all levels would not be able to fulfil their mandate to the electorates. Tax money also helps to ensure the roads you travel are safe and always in good condition. Without the tax that you pay, governments at all levels would not be able to fulfil their mandate to the electorates. Tax money also helps to ensure the roads you travel are safe and always in good condition. Adopting technology in tax administration is crucial in improving domestic revenue mobilisation in view of dwindling oil prices in order to avoid falling into a debt crisis. It is against this backdrop that the TaxPro-Max became the channel for filing Naira-denominated tax returns effectively from 7th June 2021. The TaxPro-Max enables seamless registration, filing of returns, payment of taxes and automatic credit of withholding tax as well as other credits to the Taxpayer’s accounts, among other features. The technology also provides a single-view to Taxpayers for all transactions with the Service.”

Nami also said that the FIRS collected N4.2 trillion between January and September 2021 as VAT, following the “successful facilitation of ISO 27001:2013 Certification of the FIRS’ Exchange of Information Centre and the achievement of 114.66 per cent of the VAT collection target in the first half of the year”.

In a statement released on Sunday, August 22 by FIRS spokesperson, Abdullahi Ahmad said defaulters will face penalties for failing to do so.

The statement below “The attention of the Federal Inland Revenue Service(FIRS) has been drawn to the trending report that, on 19/08/2021, the Government of Rivers State took steps to enact a Value Added Tax Law for Rivers State following the Judgment of the Federal High Court Port Harcourt Division on 9th August 2021 in Suit No: CS/149/2020.  The suit was about who has the constitutional duty for the collection of VAT and Personal income tax in Rivers State. We wish to inform the general public that, before the above-mentioned steps taken by the Government of Rivers State, FIRS had lodged an appeal against the above judgment and had also filed an application for stay of execution of the judgment as well asking the Court for an injunction pending determination of the appeal. All parties to the suit are aware that both applications were heard on the 19th and 20th August 2021 and are awaiting the decision of the Court. Given that the Court of Appeal is yet to rule on the Appeal from the Judgement of Federal High Court and that the Federal High Court is yet to deliver a ruling on FIRS’s applications for stay of execution and injunction, members of the public are advised to continue to comply with their Value Added Tax obligations until the matter is resolved by the appellate courts.”

Executive Chairman of the agency, Mohammed Nami disclosed this during an interactive session organised by the house of representatives committee on finance on the 2022-2024 medium-term expenditure framework/fiscal strategy paper (MTEF/FSP) for ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) in Abuja on Wednesday, August 18.

When a member of the committee, Afolabi Olalekan asked Nami to explain what FIRS has put in place to tackle tax evasion by people in the informal sector, he responded by saying that one of the measures include the introduction of road tax.

He said “What we have done on the informal sector at a time was try to propose what we call a presumptive tax to the national assembly but in the course of doing that we face a bit of challenge and we did not submit the proposal yet, simply because we discover that there is an act of the national assembly that exempted businesses with a turnover of about N1 to N25 million. So if you already have that, you can find it difficult to say come and pay presumptive tax. Presumptive tax is a tax that we just give you form to say based on your own estimate, how much have you generated this year and you say 12 million, then we say pay maybe six per cent of that 12 million and you go because you are not an organised sector. But there is a law which has exempted every business with a turnover of N1 and N25 million so you find it difficult to implement such a thing. The second thing we are doing of which we have already done is to create a department called intelligence, strategic data-mining and analysis department; which the only thing these young boys and girls do on a daily basis is just to gather intelligence on companies and particularly these informal sector, analyse them and then escalate those gap that they identify for the purpose of tax assessment and tax collection. Number three thing we are thinking of, and we will surely come back to the national assembly on that, is to introduce road taxes. Road tax is necessary because all over the world there is no way we would see people that will use roads for free. As is it today, even if you are able to give an entire N10 trillion to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it will not be able to fix the roads in Nigeria, just the roads in Nigeria alone. So what we have decided to do is to propose the introduction of road taxes to the federal government through our special tax operations department so that at least 50 trucks that would be plying these roads for free at any given point in time, comes across a toll gate or probably somewhere that we are going to use an electronic device to collect it without necessarily erecting toll gate. We are aware that the owners of these trucks, don’t pay anything to the government, they don’t get the FIRS certificate. So up to 15 or 20 trucks that will ply the road that is built with a personal income tax that I pay and you pay and then they don’t pay taxes. That is what we want to identify.”

Justice Stephen Pam who issued a restraining order against the federal agency had said that there is no constitutional basis for FIRS to demand and collect VAT, withholding tax, education tax and technology levy in Rivers state or any other state of the federation.

The court further declared that the defendants are not constitutionally entitled to charge or impose levies, charges or rates (under any guise or by whatever name called) on the residents of Rivers state and any state of the federation.

The judgement implied that FIRS is also barred from collecting VATs in other states in the country.

However, in a statement released on Sunday, August 15, the agency announced that it has filed a stay of execution and advised the public to maintain a status-quo on the payment of the taxes.

It read “This is to inform the general public that the Federal Inland Revenue Service has lodged an appeal against the judgment of the Federal High Court Port Harcourt Judicial Division delivered by Honourable Justice Stephen Pam, in SUIT NO. FHC/PH/CS/149/2020-ATTORNEY GENERAL OF RIVERS STATE v. FEDERAL INLAND REVENUE SERVICE & ANOTHER. We have also sought an injunction pending appeal and a Stay of Execution of the said judgment. As the decision is being appealed and in view of the pending applications for injunction and stay of execution which the FIRS has filed in court against the judgement, members of the public are advised to continue complying with the Value Added Tax obligations until the matter is resolved by the appellate courts in order to avoid accruing the consequent penalties and interest for non-compliance.”

In a formal notice signed by Ibzimakor Nnubia, the union’s Deputy General Secretary on behalf of General Secretary, Yahya Ndako, the FIRS was accused of engaging in “illegal” deduction of its members’ check-off dues which are accruable to the union and unlawfully clamping down on the union.

It read “Please be informed that the Federal Inland Revenue Services has pitched itself against the Nigeria Civil Service Union over the union’s demand that issues impeding productivity and efficient service delivery be addressed, by clamping down on the union, sealing the union’s unit secretariat and unilaterally stopping check-off dues accruable to the union from our members. Flowing from these unwholesome tactics, the Nigeria Civil Service Union has resolved to picket the Federal Inland Revenue Services offices nationwide from 26 July 2022 until the Secretariat is unsealed; check-off dues deductions accruable fully restored and the contentious issues between the management and the union are resolved.”

FIRS appealed to taxpayers in Nigeria to capitalize on the opportunity provided by the remaining days to settle their tax obligations in order to enjoy all subsisting waivers offered.

The Executive Chairman, Muhammad Nami, issued a reminder notice ttitled, “Public Notice on the Recovery of Outstanding Taxes from Taxpayers.”

Nami said that FIRS had issued a series of palliatives for the waivers of penalties and interest on outstanding taxes.

The chairman said the agency observed that some taxpayers are yet to capitalize on the windows opened to cushion the effect of the challenges of the economy on taxpayers.

“The Service wishes to put all taxpayers on notice that the last window of opportunity for the waiver of outstanding penalties and interest on all taxes collectible by the Federal Inland Revenue Service shall close on 31st December 2020″, Nami announced.

The notice added that after the expiration date, FIRS will recover all outstanding debts with penalties and interest, in accordance with the provisions of the extant tax laws such as “the power of substitution” conferred on it by Section 31 of the FIRS (Establishment) Act 2007.

Landlords and property agents were given the directive by the tax agency’s Director, Communications and Liaison Department Abdullahi Ahmad on Wednesday, July 22. They are expected to remit such collections to FIRS “so that they do not run foul of the Stamp Duty Act.”

Ahmad said “Property-related transactions like tenancy or lease agreement fall under the Ad Valorem category of the stamp duty which attracts six per cent duty payable in the percentage of the total value or sum of the tenancy or lease. The burden of payment of the six per cent lies on the beneficiary of the tenancy or lease agreement, whom the Stamp Duty Act identified as the tenant or renter. The responsibility of collection and remittance fall on the landlord or agent in charge of the property for lease or rent. The party making the payment shall have the obligation to account for the applicable stamp duties.”

Other Stamp Duty types and their rates include Appraisement or Valuation of Property, 5 per cent; Certificate of Occupancy and  Partnership, N1,000 flat rate; Gift of Land, 1.5 per cent and Legal Mortgage, 0.375 per cent,  Legal Mortgage (Upstamping), 0.375 per cent; Deed of Conveyance or Transfer on Sale of Property,  1.5 per cent; Memorandum of Understanding (Related to Land, Sales, Joint Venture, Surrender, Subdivision Agreements, 1.5 per cent; Power of Attorney (Irrevocable/Land Related), 1.5 per cent and  Sales Agreement, 1.5 per cent.

The Stamp Duties payment is backed by the Stamp Duties Act (SDA) 1939 as amended by numerous Acts and various resolutions contained in the Laws of the Federation of Nigeria. The SDA also provides a list of documents in its schedule and the duty payable on each.