The Chairman of FCT-IRS Abdullahi Attah, is a man who believes the use of technology, collaboration with other similar agencies and better public awareness to help drive revenue for government through making public see tax payment as a vital obligatiuon.
What Attah is doing carries a wider question on FCT-IRS’s ability to reform itself and emerge stronger to be bale to widen the tax net. For years, stakeholders in some of the most vital sectors of the economy have been the beneficiaries of largesse driven by official policies have been short-changing government on tax returns. Then many high networth individuals too cheat government on tax. For example high profile marriages are done regularly; expensive cars also full Nigerian roads without being taxed .
In many of these examples, affluent individuals made generous financial gains without either paying their tax dues and/or presiding over unreasonable financial returns. Attah effort at shoring up FCT-IRS target may not include these immediately, but he is doing something that will lead to sharpest increases in tax collection within the FCT.
This was especially pertinent in terms of government promises of taking on powerful economic interests in favour of the public. And with people like Attah, that promise is gradually being fulfilled. the story has far from reached its logical end.
Going forward, Attah faces the challenge of staff to decisively help him boost collection. In March this year, he took decisive steps by engaging some consultants, strong individuals connected to tax administration in Nigeria. 165 consultants were engaged to audit six years’ back duty taxes of Ministries Departments and Agencies(MDAs), enterprises and corporate organisations.
The Executive Chairman of FCT-IRS, Mr Abdulahi Attah, disclosed this while speaking on some innovations the agency had put in place to improve the system of tax administration in the territory on Monday in Abuja.
Attah, who said that the consultants were employed with the approval of Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), added that the years of back duty taxes would be between 2015 and 2020.
According to him, the law requires taxable persons and organisations to file their annual returns on or before the end of March. He noted that the services of the consultants became necessary because Abuja had numerous MDAs and companies
“Abuja being the Headquarters of Nigeria has 930 MDAs and many companies resident within. So, there is no way we would have enough staff to do that. So, we hired people to help us do this audit,” Attah said.
The executive chairman, therefore, appealed to employers of labour to file their 2020 tax return and urged them to cooperate with the consultants in the discharge of their duties. He said that the agency had written to many companies, saying that “some ask for extension till April. We are willing to give them that extension.”
Attah also disclosed that with the approval got to automate most of the agency’s services, FCT-IRS would be 80 per cent automated by the end of 2021 for transparency and accountability. That will far make things a lot easier for the FCT-IRS.
Equally, this is being quickly backed up by a similar push for technological application to drive efficiency . Towards realizing this objective Attah led a 27 man delegation to Lagos state ministry of finance in August. He led the delegation to the ministry for a study on taxation and revenue generation.
He disclosed that 60 per cent of the Federal Government Revenue came from Lagos State During that visit , Mr Abdullahi Attah, said, “the need to come here is imperative because 60 per cent of Nigerian businesses and the Federal Government revenue come from Lagos State and 60 per cent of Nigeria tax revenue is generated from Lagos. So Lagos is a very important integral part of the nation.
The essence of this visit is to appeal to the Lagos State officials to assist us in achieving a unified tax system which provides adequate tax information or data that is codified. This can be achieved if Lagos and Abuja collaborate, because we need a system that will drive itself, not manually.”
The Commissioner for Finance, Dr Rabiu Olowo, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Mrs Yemi Ayoola, said, “The state government has adopted the use of technology where necessary to reduce physical human interference in the process of revenue collection to aid swift revenue generation.
In September, FCT-IRS stated that double taxation adversely affects the ease of doing business because it erodes confidence, builds discouragement. The agency is looking to harmonise taxation in Nigeria’s 3rd largest IGR earning territory.
Attah disclosed, at a stakeholders conference in Lagos, on Tuesday, themed: “Towards a Harmonised Revenue Management Framework in the FCT. The FCT revenue boss said the agency could not continue to work in silos, and needed collaboration with stakeholders to form a new way of working to achieve their shared objectives.
“When the issue of harmonised systems or a framework is discussed in the FCT, there is usually some concern about what is sought to be achieved,” he said.
“The Area Councils, as we know are autonomous and self-governing, however, we all form part of the FCT administration, with a focus on providing services to indigenes and residents of the territory.
“The issue, therefore, is how best to work together within the existing governance system in the FCT and ensure that we are able to pool resources, utilise existing systems, know-how and even data to enable us to maximise the revenue generation potentials of the FCT-IRS.
“In doing this, we do not believe that any one organisation within the FCT administration has all the information and knowledge, but if we work together, then we will improve collaboration, exchange of information and subsequently enhance our ability to improve revenue generation and management within the FCT,” he explained.
He disclosed that in 2020, Lagos State recorded the highest Internally Generated Revenue of N418.99 billion, accounting for 32.1% of the total and closely followed by Rivers State with N117.19 billion. Others with the highest IGR in 2020 include FCT (N92.06 billion), Delta (N59.73 billion), and Kaduna (N50.75 billion).
Attah was appointed in October 2017. At that time, FCT Minister Muhammad Bello announced the confirmation of Malam Abdullahi Attah as Chairman/Chief Executive of Federal Capital Territory Internal Revenue Service (FCT-IRS) by House of Representatives.
He said the confirmation ended the process of ratification by the two chambers of the national legislature and paved the way for the agency’s commencement of operation. Bello stated this in an interactive session with FCT Executive Council, Area Council Chairmen, heads of security agencies and traditional rulers in Abuja.
The minister expressed hope that the coming into effect of the FCT IRS would boost the Administration’s revenue profile and provide fund for the implementation of projects that would make life meaningful for FCT residents.
In April 2017, President Muhammadu Buhari had earlier on reconstituted the Board of Federal Capital Territory Internal Revenue Service. President Buhari then appointed Mr. Attah as Chairman/Chief Executive and seven others as board members.
Until his appointment, Mr. Attah, a chartered accountant, was a member of the governing council of the federal University in Lafia. He also served at various times as special adviser to the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, and a director of the same organisation. He also served as a pioneer member of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
As soon as he got into office, he fired on with all power and dedication. After one year in office in 2018, the agency had captured 1.2 million taxpayers in its data base as a result of the innovations brought in by Attah.
At that time, he explained that the service leveraged on existing bio-metric data base like that of National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to register them. He said the taxpayers were captured adequately, correctly and they were given unique identification numbers that could not be duplicated.
According to him, in line with the ongoing reform on tax administration, the service did the registration online without bringing the taxpayers to the office physically.
“In the past, taxpayers have to go to tax offices to register and take their bio-metrics and that is when Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was collecting taxes on behalf of FCT.
“As part of the reform, you don’t have to come in person, through the system and various data base, we are able to identify residents of FCT and registered them accordingly.
He also disclosed that FCT-Internal Revenue Service generated N59 billion from taxation this year. He stressed that FCT-IRS was still working hard to increase the revenue, with an estimation of about N6 billion to be generated this month alone.
“Our target for 2019 is about two times and it is N130 billion. We strongly think we can achieve that because the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is giving us eight of their offices and 117 staff so that we can actualise that.
“If you compare that with what FIRS has been doing from eight offices and 200 staff vis-a-vis our own with one office, just about 30 staff and 40 NYSC members, we would have done about 30 per cent higher,” Attah said.
He declared that the FCT-IRS intends to collaborate with FIRS to take over the files from them so that the record of every tax payer that had been on FIRS system can be taken over for the number of years he had been a tax payer.
Attah, declared that one of the main objectives is to ensure that all tax payers in the FCT file their annual tax returns in the manner and with the time specified by law whether under formal employment or in the informal sector under Section 41 (3) of the Personal Income Tax Act 2011 (as amended).
He similarly disclosed that since the commencement of the issuance of Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) to FCT residents, over one million tax payers had been captured in the database and the exercise had recorded significant success.
True to his projections at that time, things have been working at the FCT-IRS. Excitedly, Attah is doing much to make such a transition sooner rather than later, the FCT’s ambition to strengthen its tax collection.
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