By Adedapo Adesanya
The Senate has approved the sum of N168.8 billion for the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for the 2020 fiscal year.
The approval came at the plenary session on Wednesday following the consideration of a report by the Senate Committee on Finance, which the body said will be used for personnel, overhead, and capital expenditure.
Chaired by Mr Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (APC – Lagos West), the committee noted, “the FIRS operates below the line account used for tax refund and support for the construction of the head office.”
“The committee also frowned at the unnecessary delay in submitting the budget for 2020. However, the current executive chairman explained that they took over the leadership of FIRS in November/December and the budget for 2020 was not ready as at then. And COVID-19 was also responsible for the delay,” it added.
While giving a summary of the 2020 budget for the FIRS, he said N1.6 trillion was projected for oil revenue while N4.5 trillion was expected from non-oil revenue, bringing a total of N6.1 trillion.
Others include N180.1 billion projected for four per cent cost of collection; N11.3 billion as projected two per cent cost of collection ceded to the Nigeria Customs Service; N168.8 net projected four per cent cost of collection available to be appropriated by NASS; and Value Added Tax (VAT) at 7.5 per cent.
The Senate, while adopting the recommendations of the committee’s report, also called for the digitization of all processes in the administration of tax in FIRS, so as to bring the Service up-to-speed with rapidly increasing online economic activities.
The upper chamber also approved a one-off special-purpose intervention fund to the tune of N100 billion to assist the FIRS to complete its head office within 12 months; six Training Schools; 30 Prototype Tax Operations Office; Purpose-built facilities for efficient taxation of Upstream Petroleum Industry and ICT Infrastructure to identify and track digital transactions.
