WHY WE ARE CHANGING OUR NAME FROM FIRS TO NIGERIA REVENUE SERVICE- FIRS CHAIRMAN 17-10-24
By Sadiq Aminu The chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, Mr. Zack Adedeji says Federal Inland Revenue Service is changing its name to Nigeria Revenue Service to reflect what the service is doing
Mr. Adedeji stated this during a meeting with the House Committee on Finance ahead of the second reading of the bills.
According to Mr. Adedeji, the agency is being called Federal Inland Revenue as if it only collects money for the federal government or only collect money in Nigeria, hence the need to repeal the act to reflect the true mandates of the service.
“It was like that when the service was established, but today, one of the revenue we collect is VAT and 85 percent of this VAT goes to the states. So what we are doing is not in line with what you call us.
“Today, we collect online charges for Jumia, google and others. As Nigeria Revenue Service, we can collect. Any revenue whether in Nigeria or out side Nigeria, we can collect it”
The Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Zack Adedeji, has said the four tax reform bills aim to harmonise all tax laws scattered in different tax laws and establishment bills.
Mr. Adedeji explained that the tax reform bills recently presented to the National Assembly is not aimed at increasing tax or introducing new taxes into the nation’s tax books.
He also said it was not aimed at merging any government agency and that it will not lead to any loss of jobs.
“We want to harmonise all the tax laws because we have tax laws scatteted in different tax laws and different establishment laws passed. The implications of that is the multiplicity of taxes that people talk about because each agency that has tax law must implement that tax law.
“No agency is superior to the other and you cannot ask one agency not to carry out the order. So, Mr. President saw that this is not good for the economy and the only way to do that is to harmonise all the tax laws and have them in one place.
” As we stand today, there is no law anywhere to actually regulate or monitor Cyrotocurrency. We are in a global community and there is no way we can exclude ourselves from what is happening globally. So, the bills is to organise the fiscal efficiency in the fiscal framework.
Mr. Adedeji pointed out that the bills if passed and assented to it would improve the transparency and integrity of revenue collection in Nigeria in line with international standard and global best practices
Mr. Adedeji who emphasized that the bills is also aimed at broadening the nation’s tax laws.
The Chairman, House Committee on Finance, Mr. James Faleke said the aim of the meeting was to give members a first hand information on the necessity of the bills so that they can make informed contribution when the bills comes up for second reading.