Taxes contributed N500bn to revenue in June – FIRS

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has said tax revenues contributed at least N500bn to the N696 billion revenue that the three tiers of government shared in June 2020.

The Executive Chairman, FIRS, Mr. Muhammad Nami, who disclosed this Monday on AIT programme also said stamp duty remittances has jumped from N18bn to about N80bn.

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He noted based on the above successes, taxes can keep Nigeria afloat.

“Nobody wants to pay tax but payment of tax is necessary. There is never a time that is appropriate for somebody to pay taxes. You can see it all over the world” he said.

Without this money, he said there will be chaos everywhere. “You are looking at issues relating to COVID-19 and the impact it is having on businesses today. People are actually losing jobs but it would be worse if taxes are not paid” he noted.

According to him, the renewed focus on stamp duty via the recent launch of an inter-ministerial committee on the recovery of stamp duty from 2016 till date has started to yield dividends.

“Before now remittance from stamp used to be an average of about N17bn and N18bn per year, Currently, it is in the region of N80bn.”