Photo caption from left: Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Sani Musa; Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zacch Adedeji; and representative of the chairman, House Committee on Finance, Hon Kalejaiye Paul, during a stakeholders’ engagement at Lagos, on Saturday.
By Charles Okonji
As part efforts geared towards the Renewed Hope Initiative of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s led government, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the National Assembly have engaged in a strategic framework to retool the nation’s obsolete tax policy as it was crucial for overall economic growth.
This was disclosed during FIRS and the NASS deliberation on policies and laws such as: Interaction between Tax Policy, Legislation and Administration: Implications for Tax Revenue Collection amidst Nigeria’s Current Economic Challenges; The Path to Realizing FIRS Mandate, Mission and Vision: Prospects and Retrospects; Understanding the New Slogan of FIRS in Its Quest for Meeting Its Ambitious N19.4 Trillion Revenue Target and the Role of Finance Committees in Supporting the Tax Revenue Collection Efforts of the Service.
In his speech at the 2024 joint Stakeholders Engagement with the Senate Committee on Finance, and the House Representatives Committee on Finance Organised by the Intergovernmental Relations Department themed, Repositioning The FIRS to achieve its mandate, Executive Chairman FIRS, Zacch Adedeji, noted that the synergy was to interact and to seek out new ways by which to continuously ” improve our processes and achieve our mandate of assessing, collecting and accounting for revenue accruing to the Nigerian federation, and administering relevant tax laws.”
To achieve the mandate, Zacch explained that service has taken different steps to increase its efficiency and effectiveness, with the ambition of gradually deepening the public’s trust in our ability to simplify tax and maximize revenue and achieve a greater confidence in the tax system through a combination of initiatives and mechanisms that focus on people, processes and technology.
The FIRS boss, who believes that the ultimate goal is to collectively improve the nation’s revenue profile, said he envisaged a path for the Service to work much more closely with its various stakeholders, to build on each other’s capacity, learn from each other’s experiences, to avoid conflict and instead reinforce each other’s strengths.
He maintained that the engagement outlined in this meeting’s agenda will translate into real shifts of thinking and acting in our collaborations and in fulfilling the common goal of constantly growing our revenue.
“We also hope that this shared privilege of shaping the blueprint of the future of our relationship, interaction, collaboration, communication, cooperation and engagement will translate into a shared responsibility to successfully work together and build the tax system we want.
Zacch was hopeful that achieving 19.4 trillion is achievable, going by present result on ground, in the third quarter of the year.
On the crypto currency, he said the plan first is to have the law that regulates it, adding that is why” we are here with the legislature, with this new innovation of system, you just have to get ready for it because you can’t go away from it.
“We just have to plan to regulate it in such a way that it is not injurious to the economic development of Nigeria.”
He pointed out that this is the reason why President Bola Tinubu set up the tax and fiscal reform committee to change and check all the laws.
“And by God’s grace, by September the new law will come where all those your concerns will be taken care of.” He stressed.
On his part, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Mohammed Musa Sani, emphasised the need for the right legislation through synergy between agency that is responsible in collecting these revenues and the people that make or enact these laws.
“By so doing we, both the Senate and the House of Representatives, work together with FIRS to give the country the right legislature for tax collection and revenue.” He stated.
He was optimistic that with the synergy he termed excellent and “With what the current leadership of FIRs is doing we are going to hit our target. With the right legislations, those laws that have been so old even before the independence of this country will be modified.”
He averred that by September, the executive will submit the executive bills in order for the House to be able to amend all these act, repeal them and reenact the ones that will go with the system.
“By the time we resume back from our recess, the executive will submit the executive bills in order for us to be able to amend all these acts and repeal them and reenact the ones that will go with the system.”
Commenting on crypto currency, he said with the current trends in the environment, looking at innovations, cryptocurrency today has become one of the largest ways of making money.
“And in Nigeria we don’t have any law to guide that. So with whatever FIRS and the legislators are doing, we are synergizing to make sure that we come out with legislation that will give Nigeria the best in getting much revenue in order to take care of all the challenges that we have both in infrastructures, human capital development and so on as soon as possible,” he noted.
