FIRS collects N2.5tr in 8 months

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has collected N2.5 trillion as total revenue in the last eight months.

A document available to Daily Trust indicated that the highest source of revenue collected was petroleum profit tax which contributed N1.7 trillion while the other non-oil taxes contributed the balance of N876.4 billion.

In January, the service collected total revenue of N317.8 billion, February (N229.5 billion), March (N230.8 billion), and April (N218.4 billion).

The collection rose to N286.8 billion in May, with N500.2 billion in June as the highest collection within the period. The collection dropped in July to N328.5 billion and rose to N396.5 billion in August.  

Speaking recently on the projection performance, the Chairman of the FIRS, Babatunde Fowler said that the agency already recorded an increase of N224 billion from January to June 2017, indicating an increase of 14 per cent from the corresponding period in 2016.

“We have therefore achieved 72.93 per cent of our half year target of N2.44 trillion for 2017 as against 74.2 per cent of N2.1 trillion for the corresponding period in 2016,” Fowler told the Senate while defending his budget proposal.