Thread by @toluogunlesi

“FIRS now has, for the 1st time in the country, a unified database; that has all kinds of details about corporate & individual accounts. At the touch of a button, [FIRS/MDAs] can access anyone’s tax history or compliance level without leaving the office.” premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines…

“FIRS has found out that there are a lot of companies that are not registered for tax,but are collecting a lot of money in VAT & not remitting it. So,we are trying to sensitise the society on why they must ask anyone they want to do business with if they have registered for tax.”

“We are putting lien on accounts that are not within the tax net. We started off with N1 billion and above. On that,we had initially 7,793. Those that we have reached an agreement with, meaning they have come forward & made some payments, are 418. They have paid N31.7bn to date.”

“Then, we took it down to N100 million and above. Those with N100 million to N1 billion are 34,943. A total of 2,148 have paid N40.8 billion. So, in the last 2 & half months, the FIRS has generated N72.5 billion from less than 2,500 people.” — Tunde Fowler, Chairman @firsNigeria

“We are looking at close to 40,000 business accounts that are not doing the right thing... Within 75 days, we have collected N72 billion... by closing their accounts. If we decided to go to court, I am sure even the courts can’t handle up to 20,000 cases of this nature.”

PT: People have criticised FIRS decision to place lien on accounts as highhanded.

Fowler: No, I don’t agree. It’s a law. What the law actually says is FIRS should put lien on the account & based on amount FIRS has specified,it should be credited straight to Govt’s account in CBN

“FIRS didn’t even follow that all through. It just said: put lien & leave the money in their accounts. When they come & show us records,we now know how much they‘re owing. If they want to pay in instalments, they‘ll draw up a payment account. So,it’s not being highhanded at all.”

PT: But, there are companies that do not make profits, but FIRS looks at their turnover & says they must pay.

Fowler: There are certain taxes, whether you make profit or not, you have to remit VAT, WHT. Those are our taxes – 3rd persons’ monies. We have what we call minimum tax.

“Nigeria’s VAT is lowest in the world... & VAT is a consumption tax, meaning that you only pay if you want to. What that means, if A wants to impress B, & takes B to eat at the Transcorp Hilton, A will pay VAT. A can buy the ingredients in the market, cook & eat without any VAT.”

“We crossed N1 trillion mark in VAT last year for 1st time. We‘re equally improving this year. Then we can discuss the way we are,for Govt to take a decision as to whether VAT should be increased or not. But we should be mindful of benefits of this additional rev to state Govts.”

“The FIRS looked at all corporate names that owned properties in Abuja, but were not within our tax net. It was found that well over 2,000 properties owners were not in our tax net. The law says if one has a corporate organisation, one should file returns.“

“On this particular case,I think they‘ve paid ~N5bn. Then,there was a group of about 34 that said they did not even own the property at all. So,FIRS has referred those ones to ICPC,all those properties have been forfeited to Govt, because the Cos said they weren’t theirs either.”

“We‘re getting support from the Presidency & Finance Minister. There were Govt agencies also that were not paying tax. The Chief of Staff has written to some of those that were giving us headache asking them to come up with a payment plan,or have the monies deducted from source.”