NFIU says tax evasion more prevalent at state level

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), Hafsat Abubakar Bakari, on Tuesday disclosed that the vast majority of tax evasion in the country happens at the state level.

Bakari stated this in Abuja at the inaugural National Revenue Assurance Summit convened by the Unit for the leadership of all Internal Revenue Services (IRS) of the states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Urging stakeholders to see the summit as a sign of the country’s commitment to the task of improving domestic revenue mobilisation, she informed them that the country has moved into a new fiscal era, where the imperative of governance and the need to deliver infrastructure and vital services to citizens requires innovation and out-of-the-box thinking.

According to the NFIU boss, growth and development at both the national and sub-national levels require stakeholders to diversify the sources of revenue available to the government, adding that the country cannot afford to rely just on proceeds from the oil and gas industry.

“To build the schools we need, to educate our children, to provide effective healthcare, to build roads and bridges, and to secure our communities, we recognize that our focus should shift towards internally generated revenue.

“Therefore, we need to have efficient and effective systems in place to ensure that everyone pays their fair share of the tax burden. There can be no room for tax avoidance and tax evasion.

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“Let me recall the role of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) to better illustrate the potential we have to catalyse accelerated revenue generation. FIUs were created as central national authorities responsible for receiving financial reports, accessing a broad range of data sources, and conducting analysis based on these to identify suspicious transactions and other potential criminal activities.

“FIUs produce intelligence reports which are used by investigative and prosecutorial authorities to take action against these offenses.

“Historically, FIUs have focused on money laundering and terrorist financing. However, at the NFIU, we have identified tax crimes and revenue assurance as a critical strategic priority for the Unit.

“This led us to establish a dedicated Tax Crimes and Revenue Assurance Department, one of the first within any Financial Intelligence Unit globally.

“While our work on tax crimes initially focused on supporting the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), we took a further step to explore partnerships with sub-national counterparts.

“To this end, our approach to working with states is built on the establishment of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which sets out the principles, objectives, and limitations of the intelligence provided.

“We have also developed, using our in-house technical resources, a secure platform for requesting and receiving intelligence from the NFIU, the Crime Records Information Management System (CRIMS).”