FIRS to block $10bn tax leakage by multinational

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) says it is working towards blocking about 10 billion dollars tax leakages by multinational corporations operating in the country who engaged in illicit profit shifting.

FIRS Executive Chairman, Mr Muhammad Nami said this at the 2020 Corporate Plan Retreat of the service in Abuja on Friday.

He added that if the country was able to detect and block tax avoidance schemes by multinational corporations, it would be able to improve its tax revenue collection.

“Since I assumed office as chairman, we have revised the organisational structure of the service that reflected management aspiration reviewed and redesigned tax audit and investigations functions and currently we are reviewing all lien cases with a view to closing them and introduce new enforcement strategies.

“In addition, we have initiated several reform projects with a view to reversing our current performance level to a more acceptable level by government,” he said.

The FIRS boss, however, stated that the service was targeting 10 per cent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio in the next four years.

Nami said the service was also targeting a minimum of 5 million dollars staff to revenue ratio within the period.

According to him, the service has agreed that in the next four years it will improve its performance on a long term and sustainable basis.

In her remarks, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed said taxation was key to the government’s plans to diversify the economy.

Represented by Ms Fatima Hayyatu, Director Technical Department, Ahmed said that the present administration’s plan to take 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years could be realised through improved revenue that would be generated by agencies of government like FIRS to develop infrastructure.

She urged participants at the retreat to fashion out ways to boost revenue generation, especially in the non-oil sector.