The Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KDIRS) said on Tuesday that it collected N26.53 billion as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in 2017.
KDIRS Executive Chairman, Mukhtar Ahmed who made announced this at a news conference in Kaduna, added that the state targeted N42 billion in 2018.
Ahmed said that the N26.53 billion represented 52 per cent of the N50.2 billion targeted for the year and an increase of N3.5 billion from the N23 billion generated in 2016.
He added that taxes constituted 51 per cent of the revenue followed by levies and fees.
He explained that the state did not meet its revenue target because of certain government policies designed to reduce the burden of tax payers.
He, however, said that measures were being put in place to ensure that this year’s target was met.
He identified truancy, shortage of manpower and incomplete automation of tax payment in revenue generating agencies as major challenges of revenue collection in the state.
According to him, the service will soon complete the recruitment of new staff, mostly youths, to inject fresh blood into the system to improve revenue collection in 2018.
“Once the recruitment is completed, we will deploy them to the field, to boost our revenue collection instead of using money agents who are sometimes dubious.
“We will give our staff target, equip them with Point of Sales (PoS) and tricycle to penetrate local markets and directly collect revenue for the state.
“Not only that, we will also ensure full automation of revenue collection in all the 68 revenue generating agencies in the state.”
The chairman commended tax payers in the state for their support to the government to ensure that revenue was raised for development.
He said that 95 per cent of challenges in revenue collection was with the tax collectors, adding that efforts were being made to address the anomaly.
On his part, KDIRS Legal Adviser, Mr Francis Kozah, reminded tax payers of the existing tax law in the state, adding that the service would prosecute all defaulters in accordance with the law.
Kozah said that the revenue agency recorded 25 criminal cases relating to tax payments in 2017.
He also said that 50 cases of tax default were taken to court in 2017 out of which 35 were at various level of prosecution. (NAN)
