Three states, FCT promise data on hidden assets, income

Nigeria generates N246.30b from VAT in Q2
The governments of Lagos, Osun and Kaduna states, as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) administration, have promised the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS) office in the Federal Ministry of Finance to provide all transaction data required to identify tax defaulters at the expiration of the first phase of the tax amnesty programme in March.

This was disclosed in a statement by the VAIDS office.

The statement also said it expects states that provide all the required information to experience sharp rises in their respective Internally-Generated Revenue (IGR), as analyses of the obtained data will lead to considerable recovery of otherwise lost revenues and yield reliable information on eligible tax-payers.

The VAIDS office had earlier this month said that it had begun collection of data on the income and assets of high net-worth individuals and companies in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, latest data from the office of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that earnings from Value Added Tax (VAT) for the 2017 second quarter have hit N246.30 billion as against N187.03 billion recorded in the comparable period of 2016.

The NBS further disclosed that sectoral distribution of VAT data for Q2 2017 reflected that N246.30 billion was generated as VAT in Q2 2017 as against N204.77 billion generated in Q1 2017 and N187.03 billion in Q2 2016, representing 20.28 per cent increase quarter-on-quarter and 31.69 per cent increase year-on-year.

It said that other manufacturing generated the highest amount of VAT with N33.69 billion generated and closely followed by professional services and oil producing both generating N21.64 billion and N14.94 billion respectively while mining generated the least and closely followed by local councils and pharmaceutical, soaps and toiletries with N34.19 million, N154.72 million and N194.26 million generated.

The Director-General of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Muda Yusuf, who spoke on the generated revenue, said the figure is attributable to the increased level of compliance, which impacted on the VAT and aggressive drive by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to ensure compliance and improvement in economic activities.