Federal Inland Revenue Service To Go After 325,000 Companies Evading Tax

                                  

The FIRS Boss has decided to go after multi-Nationals,Corporate Organisation and individual who are evading paying taxes in the country.
Statistics of the Service reveals that out of the 450,000 companies in Nigeria, only 125,000, representing 27.7 per cent, pay any form of taxes.Going by this figure, it implies that about 325,000 companies are evading tax, thus denying the government huge revenue annually.


In 2015 the FIRS has generated only N2.667tn out of N4.5Tn target given by the Government.But between January and July the service had collected a total sum of N2.374tn against the target of N2.667trn, thus having a revenue shorfall of N290bn within the seven-month period.
The immediate past boss of FIRS said they find it difficult to track company evading tax because they are no longer active, but the new Boss Dr Fowler said his administration will fight tax evasion,since he find out that some Multi Nationals operating in Nigeria are been investigated in the UK for Tax Invasion.

He said, “No country can succeed without taxation. We will make sure that we cover all ground, especially on the corporate level; all tax payers within each state will be covered.
“Those who have found Nigeria a fertile ground; those who have made a living and made profit from the businesses within Nigeria, we ask them to do the right thing.
We all know the right thing to do. Most of these companies have the big names as auditors yet they keep different records — one set of records for the banks, one set of records for shareholders and one set of records for the tax administrators.
“I think it’s time that that was stopped and I am going to also request that the multinationals should follow our laws and not do things that will contravene the tax laws and I ask them that they should please partner with us and follow the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, especially when it comes to tax payment.”

The FIRS, in a bid to capture companies with the tax net,currently discussing with the Corporate Affairs Commission to make it mandatory for the companies to obtain their Tax Identification Number at the point of registration.