Disciplinary measures will be taken against states that failed to remit various taxes collected on behalf of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), its chairman, Mr Babatunde Fowler, has warned.
Fowler gave the warning on Tuesday in Abuja at the ongoing investigative public hearing on FIRS accounting procedure.
The hearing was organised by an adhoc committee constituted by the House of Representatives chaired by Rep. Enyong Okon (PDP-Akwa-Ibom).
He said that the Federal Government had weighed the option of enforcing the deduction of unremitted taxes from the monthly federal allocations accrued to states that refused to pay in past five years.
According to Fowler, less than 20 per cent of the taxes (Value Added Tax, Withholding Tax and CIT) collected by the affected states were accounted for.
He said that several states never remitted taxes, yet benefited from the monthly federal allocation.
While enumerating strategies to beef up revenue into government’s coffer, Fowler said that plans were underway to bring at least 20 million out of the 27.5 million SMEs operating in the country into the tax net.
He said that the meeting of the Joint Tax Board held recently in Kano state, resolved to increase the number of tax payers at the state level from 10 million to 20 million by May 2016.
Fowler told the hearing that since his assumption of office in the FIRS, 363,000 tax payers had been captured into the tax net.
He said that ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) would from May 2, remit appropriate taxes including VAT and WHT deducted from payment to contractors into the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
The chairman said he plans to shore-up the country’s revenue by raising the tax base of companies operating in the country from N10 million to N20 million by the end of 2016 fiscal year.
He said that N700 billion VAT had so far been realised by FIRS out of the targeted N2 trillion for 2016, while over 100,000 companies operating across the country never paid taxes.
Fowler submitted the list of highly indebted companies from various sectors of the economy to adhoc committee for further legislative action.
The companies include those in the airline, telecommunication and construction sectors.
He said that FIRS plans to recruit 1, 250 new staff including about 1,000 auditors in its efforts to effectively address the challenges facing the service.
Okon and other members of the committee, summoned the Accountant-General of the Federation to appear before it on Wednesday.
The committee also requested Mrs Kemi Adeosun, the Minister of Finance to appear next before it week to explain the rationale behind flagrant disregard for the enforcement of Section 19 of the FIRS Act.
The lawmakers alleged that the laxity of FIRS and the Ministry of Finance abetted and aided corruption and tax evasion.
