Says fight against tax evasion, profit shifting, transfer pricing necessary

Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Dr Zacch Adedeji, yesterday, challenged global leaders to tackle the rising cross-border crimes that have disrupted revenue mobilisation and economic growth.
 
Adedeji threw the challenge while delivering a keynote address at the 42nd Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crimes (CIDOEC) held at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
 
The Special Adviser on Media to the FIRS boss, Dare Adekanmbi, in a statement, said Adedeji was represented by the Coordinating Director of Proceeds of Crime Management and Illicit Financial Flows and immediate past Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye.
 
The FIRS chairman stated that cross-border tax crimes had undermined efforts of countries to raise revenue for development. He added that cross-border tax crimes had distorted fair competition because compliant companies paid a higher cost for business and appeared less profitable.
 
“This year’s theme, ‘Cross-Border Crimes,’ speaks directly to one of the most complex and corrosive challenges of our interconnected world.
 
“In a global economy where capital can move faster than law enforcement, and where digital and legal arbitrage often outpace regulation, the fight against cross-border economic crime is, by necessity, both local and global, both urgent and pressing.”

On corporate or natural citizens who evade, avoid, or fraudulently manipulate tax obligations by exploiting the intricacies of international trade or international finance, the FIRS boss said they had become implicated in cross-border crimes.
 
He said: “When corporate or natural persons earn income in one country but hide the same in another country, when they deceive, conceal, or falsify records, they undermine the integrity and fiscal aspirations of the two countries they are manipulating.
 
“When they hide income and assets in secrecy in some jurisdictions to avoid home-country taxes, they are hurting the fiscal target of the home country.”
 
Speaking on the reforms by the current administration, Adedeji said they were necessary to build a vibrant and prosperous economy.
 
President Bola Tinubu, according to him, inherited not just fiscal challenges but a system under siege by economic crimes such as abuse of fuel subsidy regime, exploitation of foreign exchange rate differentials between official and parallel markets, illicit financial flows (IFFs), base erosion and profit shifting by multinationals, and complex trade-based money laundering schemes, amongst other cross-border crimes.