• CREATES ADDITIONAL AUDIT UNITS TO TACKLE LEAKAGES
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Monday, January 11, recounted how Nigeria had lost over US$178 billion (about N5.4 trillion at today’s rate) between 2007 and 2017 through tax evasion by Multinationals doing business in the country.
The Executive Chairman of the Service, Mr. Muhammad Nami, who disclosed this in his opening remarks at a “Workshop on Effective Audit of Multinational Corporations for Domestic Revenue Mobilisation in Nigeria,” also cited a 2014 report by the High-Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, which pointed to the fact that “Nigeria accounted for 30.5% of money lost by the continent through illicit financial flows.” The workshop was organized by the Service in conjunction with the Tax Justice Network.
Pursuant to this, the FIRS chair said the Service has created 35 additional Tax Audit Units in the country to stem illicit financial flow out of Nigeria and improve tax compliance rate.
He said: “At the FIRS, we are paying greater attention to tax audit in general and Transfer Pricing audit in particular, in order to improve the level of tax compliance in the country. As a result, in the last one year, we have created more than 35 additional Tax Audit Units and deployed experienced and capable staff to take charge of these offices.”
Nami noted that, with signing of the 2021 budget of N13.588 trillion on December 31, 2020 by President Muhammadu Buhari, and given the recent decline of oil resources, “which had been the major revenue earner for the country, taxation is expected to continue to shoulder the Government’s budget performance the way it did in 2020, noting that this underscores the importance of the workshop, as tax audit of Multinational Corporations is very crucial in Nigeria’s domestic revenue mobilisation.
Particularly, Nami who admitted that some multinational corporations were “leading in tax compliance in various sectors,” charged the workshop “to come up with a novel methodology that would be used to uncover illicit financial flows and provide an overview of related policy options for enhancing tax revenue collection in general.”/ SHARE THIS
• Tags: FIRS, Muhammad Nami
