FIRS targets N8.5trn revenue in 2020

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) says it is targeting N8.5 trillion revenue for the country in 2020.

The Executive Chairman of FIRS, Mr Muhammad Nami, disclosed this at the 2020 Corporate Plan Retreat in Abuja on Friday.

Nami said that the 2020 target was slightly lower than the 2019 target by about N300 billion.

He explained that the N8.5 trillion target was broken down into oil tax target of N3.698 trillion and non-oil taxes target of N4.8 trillion.

He stated that assessing the service’s performance in the recent past, one could look at 2020 target as ambitious but it was achievable.

The FIRS boss assured that the target was achievable and realisable especially with the ongoing reforms and business process re-engineering that were currently taking place in the service.

According to him, these reforms are aimed at improving both filing and payment compliance, re-activation of dormant taxpayers through aggressive intelligence gathering and information sharing  and blocking of leakages.

“In 2019, the FIRS achieved total tax revenue collection of N5.263 trillion against target of N8.802 trillion which translated to about 60 per cent target achievement for the year.

“The performance was slightly lower than the 2018 collection of N5.32 trillion by N57 billion. Oil tax collection for the year was N2.111 trillion which was 49 per cent achievement of its annual target of N4.301 trillion and accounted for 40 per cent contribution to the total collection.

“On the other hand, non-oil taxes collection for the year was N3.152 trillion which was 70 per cent achievements of the annual target of N4.501 trillion and accounted for 60 per cent contribution to the total collection,” he explained.

On the retreat, the chairman noted that the event was a flagship in the service’s planning cycle and a platform where staff and management review the performance of the service in the immediate past year and map out goals and strategies for achieving set objectives for the current year.

He reiterated the commitment of the service in working to realise President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision at taking 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years by collecting robust revenue to develop infrastructure. (NAN)